My Gilded Life
by Skysaber
Summary: Gilderoy Lockhart. The one person in the books who was there at a pivotal moment and could have made a difference but was utterly unable to. Until a dimension traveler took over his position.
1. Chapter 1

My Gilded Life   
Chapter One 

by Skysaber   
based on a challenge forwarded by Lionheart 

OoOoO 

Challenge: Write yourself as Gilderoy Lockhart   
Response: You know what? I am GOOD at self-inserts, as they are one of my peculiar skills. And there was just so much mayhem to do from that starting off point! I couldn't resist. 

Everything goes pretty well, up until a new Dark Lord starts to arise. One the books did not prepare for. 

OoOoO 

I don't know who did it, but one morning while I was reading through my email I got a message forwarded from a friend, containing a challenge he had heard on one of the writing boards he frequented. It was a fairly simple challenge about 'imagine your life if you became Gilderoy Lockhart', but I'm guessing it was a sorcerer or a mischievous fey or someone like that SRU mage who first put it up, because I went to sleep thinking about it... 

... and the next morning woke up at Hogwarts. 

The look of the place was pretty distinctive. Those castle walls, hangings and four poster bed aren't something you usually wake up to, and a good first tip off that something was out of the ordinary. 

So it was a good thing I am so very good at adapting to the unusual. 

Rolling out of bed, I saw clothes like you'd sooner see in an expensive play (one with a VERY high costume budget) spilled out of a large wardrobe and chest. But they gave me the distinct impression that this was just a case of open luggage, not a place someone had moved into. This idea got reinforced by the localized nature of the mess, it was not spread out over the entire room, just the immediate area of the luggage itself. 

I figured out my next step was to call a house elf to A) see if this really was Hogwarts (after all, if one showed up that would tell me quite a bit, and if one didn't I had to go exploring other options), and B) get some local information like date and time and what I was doing there. 

That was when the memories hit. 

I had never been the type to scream. The shock wasn't even all that bad, and if I had to compare it to anything it would be to suddenly recalling something you'd forgotten, like to make a telephone call, or read a book, only it was all hitting me all at once, everything this guy had ever said or done. 

I think I must have passed out, because the next thing I knew I was waking up all over again, and this time I knew exactly where and who I was, what I was doing there and how I got to be there. 

I was Gilderoy Lockhart, and I knew all that the useless fop had done in the frivolous pursuit of glory he called a life. What's more, I knew how to do the handful of tricks he'd mastered in magic, but ALSO, probably the only useful skill he had, I knew how to do the whole 'Celebrity' behavior thing of getting the press to love me, talk people into things and generally be a charming guy, instead of merely just any old ordinary guy. 

Well, that was useful. It didn't much matter what tools you had, if you used them well you could often go far, and charm was actually a big one, very useful in the right circumstances. 

It was just that those circumstances didn't cover everything. 

Fortunately for me, I'm also kept my knowledge of Rowling's books. I was instantly grateful for that, and despite disagreeing with her treatment of her characters and thinking she was generally clueless about relationships and REALLY hating some of the stunts she'd pulled, here she was effectively a seer, and that information was hopefully going to save some lives. 

Well, as always, first things first. I rolled out of bed intending to go through my usual morning routine and found that my body already had its own ideas of how to do so. 

I was thankful for this, as I didn't think there was any other way I would've figured out all of the stuff in the magical bathroom and his grooming kit. Although I had to admit a certain inner amazement when I realized the extent of the beauty treatments Lockhart put himself under. 

The original Lockhart took great pains for his appearance, and while I was not opposed to looking good, I generally drew the line at curlers. 

Still, in spite of it all it was useful. People are swayed by a pretty face and well groomed appearance, even if they don't mean to be. Pretty people had all sorts of advantages over plain ones. It was unfair, it wasn't right, but far be it from me to turn down any such advantage in this place. 

Harry Potter worlds were DEADLY! Not because of any inherent threat level in the magic available to them, no, rather the opposite. The incompetence of the general magical public made things dangerous, often more so than any deliberate attempt to harm you could be. 

I had no fear of thousands of armed soldiers competently fighting an equal number of professional soldiers on the other side. They destroyed more or less what they intended to destroy and one side came out the victor. BUT! Place an equal number of guns in the hands of morons, and no one was safe! 

What's more, the magical world behaved like startled sheep. Still, at least sheep could be guided, and fortunately I had the tools on hand to do exactly that! People believed pretty but empty-headed movie stars when they said things. Now I had the looks and the fame and a bit of money. I was genuinely confident the magical world would listen to me. 

Actually no sooner had I thought of money than the figures popped into my head and I was staggered with how well off Gilderoy was. But on reflection, I shouldn't have been too surprised. The guy wrote wizarding best-sellers that even families as poor as the Weasleys bought copies of; and Rowling was the richest woman in England and had made all of her money out of book sales. Granted, the magical book market was smaller, there being vastly fewer magical people, but still this guy was a cut or two above comfortably well off. 

Finished with my morning rituals (by which I meant the bathing and getting ready kind - I suppose I ought to be more careful about that word now that I was in a magical world), I struck out to find some breakfast. 

From reviewing my newly acquired memories, I knew that I had been invited to Hogwarts to interview for the open Defense Against the Dark Arts position. Albus Dumbledore and the previous Lockhart had concluded said interview late enough in the other day for him to offer to let me stay the night out of politeness, after telling me he would inform me sometime mid-summer if I had the position or not. I guessed that was most probably because he didn't want to hire me, but could not refuse until he had another option. 

And I'd already given the guy my proposed book list, darn it! 

Oh well, 'God grant me the serenity to accept what I cannot change' and all of that. My magical travel bags were already packing themselves, getting ready to depart. But it was in my heart to linger for a second or two, and I darted out into the halls, running into McGonagall almost immediately. 

"Ah, Mr Lockhart, is there something wrong with your room?" she addressed me with a raised eyebrow. 

I returned to her a dazzling smile that came to my face with automatic ease, and on a whim I gallantly offered her my arm. "Ah, my dear Professor, how could the hospitality of Hogwarts be anything less than ideal? But I was of a mind to take my breakfast in the Great Hall, if you'll have me. It was my intent to relive some of my precious school memories one last time. May I be privileged to escort you there?" 

Her response contained some surprise, well controlled, and I recalled that Gilderoy had never been her best student, quite nearly the opposite really. But after only a moment's pause she gave a small smile and accepted my arm and the pair of us swept down rather gallantly into the Great Hall, where breakfast was already being served. 

After carefully seating my 'date' I suppose you should call her (and I was trying to be charming in the hopes of winning her support), I saw Ron come in with some Gryffindors and, instead of seating myself, bent over to whisper an excuse into McGonagall's ear about only being a moment. Then I swept in some haste over to the Gryffindor table. 

Standing opposite Ron, who I noted was there without Harry, although Hermione was already up and reading a book while eating, I posed casually and with a charming smile to address him. "Ronald Weasley?" The boy looked up and I took his hand to give it a firm shake, before leaning on the table to ask what I'd intended. "Could I trouble you for a moment? I hear you've got a pet rat, name of Scabbers if I'm hearing right, which I'd like to buy from you." 

Straightening up, I took a few coins from my belt pouch (wizards did not use wallets that I could recall) and jingled them in my hands. "Would four galleons be enough?" 

Apparently it was, as Ron stared at me dumbfounded, cheeks filled with food that he didn't even bother to swallow before taking off like a shot towards the dorms, racing away like the hounds of Hades were after him. 

"Why would you want a rat? Especially one as lazy as Scabbers?" one of the boys, one whom I didn't recognize (and by this presumed was not in Harry's year), took a moment to ask me. 

I gave him a wink and a condescending smile. "All will be clear in time." 

Then I turned my attention to Hermione, who was already looking up to wonder what all of the fuss was. Recalling the date, and what I'd read from the books, I surmised that Harry's absence was due to his still being in the Hospital Wing after dealing with Quirrel, saving the Philosopher's Stone. 

Excellent. That gave me an opening to use here. I schooled my face into one of knowing concern and gestured for Hermione to speak with me a few feet away from the table, where I crouched to speak to her on her level, putting a hand around her back to speak closely. 

"Miss Granger," I spoke in kindly, but concerned tones. "Some things have come to light as Mr Potter was admitted to the Hospital Wing. Madam Pomphrey found signs consistent with child abuse," she gasped, covering her mouth with her hands while I went on in those same concerned tones. "There has been at least one broken arm, perhaps more. I am not at liberty to say the full extent, of course. But I was wondering if you would be so kind as to owl your parents, asking them if Harry could stay a week or two with your family at the start of the summer while his home life is investigated?" 

"Of course!" she exclaimed, now filled with energy as I was privileged to watch the girl genius enter what was probably her emergency mode. Her hands fluttered from mouth to skirt to waist and finally she lunged for her books and homework, scrambling through her bag for pen and parchment. "I'll send them a letter right away! Thank you, professor!" 

I stood back up, favoring her with a warm gaze, but her attention was already on her quill and ink. Not bothering to correct her for-now-mistaken impression that I was a professor, I began to walk confidently back to the head table and the seat I'd saved by Minerva's side when Ron came barreling back into the Great Hall in a terrible rush, holding Scabbers in both hands as he came stuttering to a halt before me. 

I gave him a friendly yet amused gaze, silently cheering and inwardly grateful that Gilderoy Lockhart had devoted so much time to learning charm and poise, as it was proving enormously useful. I quirked an amused grin at him, saying, "Well, I can hardly take him in my hands like that. Your pet doesn't know me yet, and he might bite or scurry off before he does. Why don't you get one of your brothers to stun him, then we'll make the trade, eh?" I cheerfully danced the coins across the back of my hand. 

Ron gave me a desperate nod, then he was over getting one of his brothers, Percy, I noted with some relief (knowing the twins would have crept in some prank), to stun the rat for me. I would have done it myself, but Lockhart was absolutely hopeless with any and all spells other than his singular gift with memory charms. 

Sensing no danger, Scabbers allowed himself to be stunned. Actually, with the near death grip Ron had him in, it wouldn't have mattered much in the end if Peter had struggled anyway. 

Taking the now insensate rat and paying the boy his four galleons, with a two galleon tip because I was feeling generous, I fondly ruffled his hair then swept back to the Head Table holding the creature firmly in one hand. 

McGonagall favored me with a curious stare as I stopped opposite her rather than joining her at the table. Some of the other staff members were also looking at me with some degree of curiosity, and it was programmed into Lockhart's existence to play the stage. So I made a show of it, grandstanding a bit as I presented the stunned rat before them. 

Favoring the transfiguration teacher with a small bow, I spoke, "Professor McGonagall, first I would like to assure you that nothing could draw me from your wonderful conversation and stellar company save what I felt was something of an emergency. And upon entering the Great Hall I took note of a few things, and, well... I was wondering, my dear, if you could perform the Animagus revealing spell upon this animal?" 

Quite curious now, the woman drew her wand to perform the incantation and no sooner had it struck the animal than Peter Pettigrew enlarged and fell out of my grasp across the staff table. 

"Stand Back!" I shouted across the sudden noise, waving my arms grandly to clear a space among the reacting mob. "This man is a Death Eater, still at large! You see!" Baring Pettigrew's left arm I held it aloft in one swift motion, getting gasps from the staff table and shock from the students. "Hiding out with a wizarding family gave him ready access to news as he awaited his lord's return." 

Ron nervelessly dropped the scone he'd been busy eating. 

"But that's Peter Pettigrew! He would never..." McGonagall's about to be voiced objections trailed off as I rotated the man's arm so that she could see the faint yet still tell-tale mark upon Peter's forearm. 

Her eyes met mine in shocked amazement, then her expression changed to one of appalled understanding. 

I smiled grandly. "You give yourself too little credit, McGonagall. I remember enough of your lessons to be able to spot a rogue animagus or two. Honestly, I am surprised you did not make the arrest yourself. But no matter, we caught him." 

Spinning around to face the stunned faces of the students gathered in the Great Hall, I put on my most winning grin. "As most of you should know, the Death Eaters serving the last Dark Lord all bear his mark upon their left forearm. He uses it to summon them, and they can use it to bypass wards and so on. But we, who fight against them, can use it to identify them. This man," I waved to indicate the still-insensate Pettigrew. "Was one of the best friends of James and Lily Potter. It is obvious now that he betrayed them. How and why is still unsure, but he will be handed over to the Ministry Aurors for questioning, I assure you. Because first and foremost, it was this man whose testimony was key in sending one Sirius Black to Azkaban, and now that it is revealed that it is Pettigrew who is a traitor and liar, it becomes clear that he most probably invented that story to conceal his own heinous crimes. And thus, it may be that an innocent man is suffering while a guilty one roamed free." 

I'd have to remember that speech to make it once again to some newspapers (although most certainly NOT to that Skeeter woman), and later again to the Ministry. 

Enlisting Professors Flitwick and McGonagall to go with me, she to levitate the disgusting traitor's body and he to stand guard, "Watch closely and with care, my good man, that is one slippery customer to have escaped capture all this time. We know he is a rat animagus. He may yet have more surprises. Be careful, I say." We made our way to the nearest floo access and from thence to the Ministry to report our capture. 

It took all day of tooting my own horn, talking to the papers (who would print us as front page news in the next edition) and convincing both politicians and Aurors, but I was able to get Pettigrew put under questioning and the true story of his betrayal of the Potters revealed. 

The Ministry was in an uproar. The press was having a field day blackening the reputation of the previous administration, and toward evening I slipped out the back and went over to the house of Barty Crouch. 

That man was still at the Ministry answering questions and would be for some time as I knocked on the door. 

While walking there from the floo point, I had taken Lockhart's wand out and was practicing my Stupify spell on every tree, rock and animal I came across. The spell was a simple one, not too hard and quite useful, one of the most basic of all combat spells and rather well suited to a beginner like me. 

The original Gilderoy could have learned it but was too lazy. I, who knew the kind of danger I was in just by being in this world, had sufficient motivation as to be able to get a decent handle on it before too long, although I'd had to take an extra hour on my walk, circling the house at a few blocks distance as I did so. 

Really, from that bit in the books where they were discussing the childhood of Tom Riddle, Albus made it clear that one could lose some or all of one's ability to use magic to depression or the like. Thus, personality and attitude had an influence on one's magical potential. 

Well, my personality was more akin to Hermione's than anyone else in this series. I'd been known to read dictionaries and encyclopedias for fun. I read school books out of school and studied by myself because I felt that study was enjoyable. My idea of light reading was a good book on physics or history. You could hardly picture a more different personality than that for the man I was replacing, and, if it came right down to it, it was no wonder that I'd be able to master spells that he had never gotten a handle on. 

However, to do even the most basic addressing of my present shortcomings in magical skill I needed time, and certain things had to be set into motion before I began correcting that lack on any kind of broad scale. 

Finally feeling I had enough of a handle on that basic spell to use it reliably (and not willing to go on with the next stage until I'd had it to that level, so whatever time it took I was willing to spend, even if that meant coming back a day or even a week later), I went to meet Crouch Jr. 

Approaching the house at last, I knocked on the door. Upon Winky answering, I opened my mouth, beginning to ask if her master was in, and as she opened her mouth to reply I stunned her, then used the one type of spell Gilderoy was good at to erase that memory from her mind. 

Entering the house, I began my search for Barty Crouch Jr. While I would've loved to use spells to reveal him, even indirectly by doing things like tying ropes across doors and hallways, flooding the floor with an inch or so of water to betray footsteps, or even better, just summon that invisibility cloak off of him, I couldn't as I had only one specialty from Gilderoy and one spell I'd practiced myself since arriving on this world. 

Still, the trick of invisibility is a limited one if a person knows that is what he is looking for. Making certain the door was both closed and locked behind me, I went through the room waving a weighted scarf through all of the spaces a man might be able to fit himself. 

Jackpot. I got lucky quickly. Barty Crouch Jr. was most probably bored to death with his imprisonment and had moved to see who was visiting. The point of my scarf attack was not so much to hit him, although that would have worked just as well, but to scare him into moving about to avoid it. I heard him try to move as I started to swing my scarf through the air, and by listening carefully I was able to tag him before he got out of the front room. 

A simple Stupify later and one big problem was solved. 

I took his invisibility cloak immediately, as those things were useful, and I had plans where I could use one (or several). Then I went for a quick search, as in the books this piece of slime had killed his father, transformed his body into a bone, and then buried that bone wrapped in an invisibility cloak - this, while he STILL had the one that he'd been wearing. 

So I knew there were two cloaks in there and I wanted them both. Finding the other was depressingly easy, too, as it was hung up in his father's closet. 

Taking them both (figuring that since Barty Crouch had smuggled his son out of Azkaban, leading to the Dark Idiot's restoration, and thus he was partially responsible for hundreds if not thousands of deaths, and that by taking care of his son like this I was not only sparing his life, but saving him considerable bad karma as well, so he could spare a couple cloaks in exchange), I dragged the stunned criminal outside (I did not know the Levicorpus spell as yet, and although I could probably learn it pretty easily, now was not the time or place to practice it) then gave Winky a false memory of her charge overcoming the Imperious curse long enough to grab his father's second invisibility cloak, run outside and escape. 

I did not want her to recall any part of my visit at all. That was important, so I gave Mr Death Eater the same memory. 

Dragging the stunned criminal to a muggle road, I hired a cab to take us to just outside of the Leaky Cauldron. After Obliviating the driver's mind of the ride (I had forgotten until the last moment that I had no muggle money on me) and waiting for him to drive away, I propped up the body, stunned him again, then ran inside of the pub shouting for Aurors, claiming that I had just been attacked by a Death Eater outside while on my way to the Cauldron. 

Everyone was, of course, aghast. Not only was this the second Death Eater uncovered that day, but he was also a second man who'd long been thought to be dead, only now showing up alive. 

Flicking glamour sparkles off the ends of my hair I showboated the whole affair like the pro that Lockhart was. "Well, obviously," I explained, showing forth not a hint of the fear I might have felt. "When I exposed the traitor Pettigrew and revealed his position, this one also felt endangered and tried to take me out in a sort of revenge attack. But honestly, how he could have hoped to overcome me is something I could never comprehend." 

Yes, I was laying it on thick, but I was also relying heavily on the original's skill and instincts for dealing with crowds like this, and that was what he'd do in that sort of situation. 

I signed a few autographs, posed for pictures, made a statement, dropped hints about a soon to be forthcoming book giving all of the details of these remarkable captures, gave an interview to a more reputable reporter than Skeeter (I was avoiding that dreadfully dishonest woman) so that everyone could read my version of the story in the paper the next day, and made my exit with Barty Crouch Junior safe in the Aurors' custody. 

Fudge contacted me about my receiving an award for these arrests, and the Lockhart part of me had agreed before I'd had any chance to consider the ramifications, or the ways that I'd rather be spending that time. But there were good and bad sides to having Gilderoy's social skills, I supposed, and he would do just about anything for more fame or glory, or especially both. 

Now the proud owner of two invisibility cloaks, neither of which I had made any mention of when reporting the 'attack', I reflected that I had good luck so far and prayed that it would last, as there was a certain momentum that I had to be sustaining here. 

There were only a few time sensitive situations that I wanted to take care of, and I needed them all done as quickly as I possibly could. 

Shoplifting when you can erase a store clerk's memory of you ever having been there is dead easy. But better still to have an invisibility cloak. I went to a medical supply store and picked up a syringe and a few odds and ends. 

Hiding those in my clothes, I then popped back in to Hogwarts to hand deliver a note to Dumbledore. 

What I would love to be telling him was that I had reconsidered my booklist, and give him Remus' text from Harry's third year, with Lockhart's stolen tales of amazing adventures as mere recommendations (After all, I could not depart too much from the Lockhart image and have it remain useful, and the money from those sales could hardly hurt). 

However, I was unable, as I couldn't remember the title of the book Remus had used. Frankly, I don't know that Rowling ever told us what it was, as I had a habit of latching on to little details like that. 

I was an author, after all. Now from both my lives. 

But the point was moot. Instead of merely dropping by to scribe a quick note for a flyby delivery, I was surprised that Dumbledore saw me personally, and my agile mind was working on this all of the way to his office. 

Once we arrived, I positioned myself as if for a photograph at the window, looking out and pretending to scan the serene scene of the Hogwarts lake so I didn't have to meet him in the eyes. A very relaxed smile was on my face as he offered me tea. 

"No, thank you." I politely declined. "But if you have any pumpkin juice I would not decline. Seeing this place has been bringing back memories." 

He gave a fond smile himself at the subject, summoning a house elf to deliver us both our drinks. "Yes, I find myself each year surprised both by the depth of my nostalgia, yet also how fresh every new day seems." 

"I could not agree with you more," I raised my glass in toast to him, and took a sip. It tasted like pumpkin pie in liquid instead of solid custard form. I was glad for the flavor, as it was a fond one to me. 

To both sides of me, actually, although it was not from any of Lockhart's memories that I recalled Thanksgivings at home, as the British didn't celebrate that holiday. 

No, his were of carefree school days. 

Days so free of care, in point of fact, that he had just barely graduated and had almost no useful skills. 

I smacked my lips appreciatively, setting down the glass and getting to business. "Now Albus," I spoke to him with genial familiarity, just I could recall 'I' had done at our previous visit, which was my interview for this job. "These last two Death Eater encounters have stirred some thoughts in my mind." 

"Oh?" he responded, eyes most probably twinkling as he assumed that grandfather pose he did so well. 

As one actor to another, I could tell he played that role very well indeed. He might even have fooled himself with it, which would explain more than a few things about plot holes in the series. 

I could not confirm said twinkle as I dared not meet his eyes. Instead I gave a gruff, almost soldier-like nod and assumed an expression of seriousness. "I want to review my application with you, as, with Pettigrew discovered, Black is almost certain to get a trial. And, if he is innocent, I could hardly think of a better teacher for your Defense Against the Dark Arts position, provided he had some time to overcome the trauma of his imprisonment, of course." 

Now I had the old man's genuine attention, so I continued. "So I was hoping to make a play along these lines: We both know about the curse that Voldemort placed on this position." I noted out of the corner of my eye that his eyebrow went up as I said the Dark Idiot's name. "So I give it to you: in your expert opinion do you believe we could side-step that curse by having two teachers, in this case myself and Mr. Black, trade off alternating years as Professor of the DADA course? In this case, myself first, then Black, then back to me the next year, and so on?" 

Dumbledore beamed a smile toward me and he rose to his feet, placing his hand in a grandfatherly way on my arm. It was a clear and nearly unavoidable 'look in my face and meet my eyes' gesture, and his smile faltered when I failed to respond in the way he'd hoped. "My boy, why don't you look at me?" 

Staring at the floor, I responded, "In our last visit you used Legilimency on me. I may not have a defense, yet the practice makes me uncomfortable." 

There was a moment of silence before he nodded, went around to his desk and sat down once again, now no longer trying to trap my gaze with his. 

"Three times now you have surprised me in this visit, Gilderoy," he told me. "Can you tell me what they are?" 

I smiled, returning my gave to out the window. "I could tell you one was when I said the Dark Idiot's name." This time he flinched in surprise, and my smile broadened, revealing sparkling white and even teeth, winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Contest several times running. Hey, I HAD it, and I was sure as anything going to USE it! "The next I would say to be my knowing of the curse, and who cast it, yet being willing to accept the job anyway. The third I would say was my offer to share the position. So, do I pass your little test?" 

"Most comfortably," he set down his teacup, out of which I'd nearly caused him to spew with my Dark Idiot comment. "I'd say you Exceed Expectations, although you are wrong on one point. My first surprise was not your laudable willingness to say Voldemort's name. That was my second. My first surprise was, however, your leap ahead in logic concerning the case of Sirius Black. When you spoke of Pettigrew's capture hinting strongly of the innocence of Sirius, thus leading to a long overdue trial, you had indeed sped ahead of my own thinking on that matter. But now you have surprised me four times, showing forth a truly remarkable courage to say not only the Dark Lord's name, but to twist that into an insult when there are still some about who regard him highly." 

I waved a hand airily dismissing the matter. "Two of those I have taken care of just today. If there are any more they should be feeling some fear of their own about facing me." 

"Indeed," he replied calmly, still weighing me carefully. "But on that issue, tell me: How did you become alerted to Pettigrew's hiding place?" 

I gave a wide and expansive wave, flashing my most brilliant smile and gave him the story I had thought up to cover me on this issue. "Why, old chap, it was so obvious! Now consider," I told him, raising a finger to count off my points. "I'd overheard talk before about one of the Weasley boys having a pet rat, however on this most recent visit I caught a comment in the halls that told me they'd had this particular animal in the family for upwards of ten years! Now, as you must know, the normal lifespan of a rat is only three to five years, but this animal had never shown any other magical powers beyond its longevity. So, I saw the poor state of the kid's clothes and thought I would do him a favor by buying the rat from him to give to a friend of mine who'd see if she couldn't look into it and discover what other sorts of powers it might have. But once he'd delivered the thing I could hardly mistake it for anything but an animagus! You know the rest, I'm sure." 

He nodded, body language showing that he believed my story, which was lucky as I hadn't truly known how believable it was until he'd swallowed it. 

I stood back, cocking my arms onto my hips for a 'I'm so cool' pose. "Which reminds me of a point I was going to bring up. I'm going to need to be writing a new book to cover these events and tell the world these newest additions to my remarkable life story. That is going to require some of my time during the school year to get it out before the event has vanished from the public mind and causes sales to drop. So, I was wondering if you'd be so kind as to expand my salary so I might hire a qualified teaching assistant to aid me in my teaching responsibilities." 

He raised his face toward me in curiosity. "Who did you have in mind?" 

My smile was now far more genuine. "Well, with the events of Pettigrew and Black so close to mind, I was thinking of another friend of the famous Potter family. How about Remus Lupin?" 

Albus Dumbledore's return smile held far more warmth than before. "I think it an excellent idea. I shall draw up the offer letter immediately. Welcome to our staff, Gilderoy." 

"Any time, Albus." I patted him on the shoulder on my way out, pausing on the threshold, recalling an idea I'd once seen used in one of the better HP fanfics, one written by the same friend to forward that 'Live as Lockhart' challenge, oddly enough. "Oh, and Albus? Should Black and I start trading off years as DADA professors, we ought to have another position to switch to, and I was wondering if you could prevail upon your friend Nicholas Flamel to give us a selection of first person memories, as many as he can conveniently spare us, of course, of the many historical events he has witnessed or been party to. Even a taste of the other ages of the world in which he lived would be enormously helpful. This, and a giant pensieve, would give us a priceless tool for teaching History, and Black and I could could take over those classes on our alternate years." 

He looked up at me, honestly surprised, and I gave him a friendly nod. "You know, old boy, you might want to offer up some of your past experiences as well. You aren't getting any younger, and you've been involved in countless events of significance to history. Think about it, as it would be a tragedy to lose those without a chance of passing them on. Perhaps, if you could get a opportunity, some of the goblins might have memories of those wars to pass on. It would do wonders for bringing past eras to life to our students, and by exciting them entice the magical world in general to interest, I should think." 

On that, with a wave, I departed from his office, and I was no sooner out of that door than I began heading swiftly to the hospital wing. 

It was during class time, so no teachers were in evidence, and no students either for that matter. I slipped on my first invisibility cloak and dashed in to the wing, scanning the bunks for one, familiar boy. 

There he was, still unconscious. With swift, sure movements I took out my needle and syringe and poked into one of his veins, withdrawing enough blood to fill the thing. Then I made my departure. 

Outside the castle, outside the wards and well away from Hogwarts (as I did not want their magic to interfere with anything), I squoze out a drop of Harry's blood and blood typed him. He was a solid A minus. 

Hopes dashed, I was about to move on to a secondary plan before I realized that while I knew my original blood type, I had been Lockhart-ified somewhere along the way. So I typed myself, and found that I was AB positive, the exact opposite of my former O negative. From the universal donor to the universal receiver. How odd is that? 

Tenderly inserting the needle into my own arm, I gave myself a small transfusion of Harry's blood and went and called for the Knight Bus. 

Yes, there was a small risk, but I knew the kid well enough to know that he had no venereal diseases or anything like that. At worst I'd get an infection. As we were compatible types I wasn't worried about trauma of mismatched blood or anything like that. 

No, the worst thing was that my body would naturally clear out the new stuff in a day or so, and I needed it to bypass the blood wards on Privet Drive, as the Dursleys were a menace and there was no way under Heaven I was going to permit Harry to be returned to their care! 

Ever. 

So, for a few hours or so, I had the 'blood of the mother' (actually Harry's own) in me, so should be able to go to number four Privet Drive and do what I liked to the occupants. 

Granted, Rowling had never said much about those supposed blood wards. It had been postulated several times by fans that they might not even exist. But if they did Dumbledore himself had said they needed to be recharged at least once a year. As Harry was just now completing his first year at school, and having just burned Quirrel to death using the power of his mother's love (ironic, that), they ought to be as low as they were ever going to get. 

So now was the time to try, as if it was ever going to work it was going to work now, when they were at their lowest and presumably weakest. 

I had his mother's blood in me, and the only other thing Albus had ever said about those wards was that they were based on Harry's mother's love. Well, I liked the kid far more than Petunia ever had, so if intent ever became an issue, I ought to have that one covered as well. 

This was the last really time sensitive thing on my immediate agenda. After this I ought to be putting longer term plans into place, but those could take a while to be set up and not suffer much for a lack of immediacy. 

Sadly, my options for accomplishing this were limited. 

What I'd most like to do would be transform the couple and their pig of a son into walruses and let them go off the Alaskan coast. But I had inherited no skill, or practically no skill anyway, at transformative magics from Gilderoy. So that was out, as were most other, elegant, solutions. 

Rowling had only ever 'punished' the Dursleys for their inhuman treatment of her main character by giving them almost ten seconds of mild scolding by Albus. That, a surgically removed pig tail and a quickly-reversed prank by the Weasley twins, were all the repayment they'd ever gotten for their horrible, criminal abuse of an innocent child. Not even one second of mild scolding per year of violent and ugly mistreatment. 

Rowling was not into punishing her bad guys. I was of a far different mindset. 

The way I saw it, I had two options. The one I was favoring was simply to use the one good, solid skill I had to erase the Dursleys' minds of who and what they were and dump them all into brand new lives, preferably in some other country. 

But there were down sides to that. One was that it didn't really do much to punish them or satisfy my desire for justice. The other was that Albus was far, FAR too likely to simply find them and restore them, and if he did it was almost certain for him to recognize my wand signature, and from there cause all sorts of nasty questions and put me in a real pickle. 

So, though it was my preferred way, at least until I could learn sufficient magic to turn them into whales and make them unlocatable, I could not risk it. Especially not as to fail at such an attempt would destroy me. Albus would never trust me again, and he'd make sure that I'd never come close to Harry under any circumstances whatsoever, especially not at school, so not only would I lose my new job but it would destroy any chance I had to help Harry or resolve that diary mess before it got ugly. 

That left only a far more permanent solution. 

I nearly shied away from it. Taking a human life something that you should never consider lightly. But all of the more mild ways of removing the family required far more magic than I had at my disposal, and even so were far too likely to be reversed by Dumbledore. Also, this had to be done quickly or the unfeeling creatures would go on to further ruin the life of Harry Potter. 

And they would eventually succeed in breaking him. The Harry of the latter books was nothing like the plucky youngster who started off the series. If that were taken to be as true, then the most plausible answer for how that came about was the stresses of his miserable life finally getting to him. 

The kid might cheat death and foil bad guys time and time again through lucky breaks, but he'd never had any down time to relax and unwind. He was either at home being abused by Dursleys, at school being abused by Snape or Umbridge and so on, or in danger of his life. And intermixed in all of that were the abuses and insults of Minister Fudge, the Daily Prophet, and Draco. A school full of children willing to isolate him and whisper about him being the Heir of Slytherin, or wear 'Potter Stinks' badges also hadn't helped any. And the poor guy didn't have a single friend who did not, at some point, abandon him. For that matter he didn't have all that many friends to start with. 

No, that sort of pressure would break anyone sooner or later. 

So, if you don't want the boy to break (and I didn't) do something to ease off the pressure. The kid needed a shelter, a safe place to consider home, and he wasn't going to get safety while he was being bounced between abusive Dursleys and the abuse he'd gone through at school. 

The kid wanted a normal life? Fine. The Grangers were about as normal as you get. Spending a summer or two with them ought to do him a world of good. But to do that, the Dursleys had to be out of the picture. 

No problem. 

A part of me wanted to find a supply store where they sold explosives and stick a lit stick of TNT down each of the Dursleys' pants while they were bound and unconscious. But that would get everyone screaming 'murder' at the top of their lungs and that would just serve to upset everybody. 

No, a little more elegance was called for. 

With access to a medical supply house poisons were easy to obtain. All drugs are poisons, you just vary the dosages (some more than others). Sneak in the back door under an invisibility cloak and while wearing gloves, apply some to the meal Petunia was preparing for her family, and there you go. They got sleepy, as that was the drug I'd chosen to use, but while I could be certain that Vernon and his son had gotten lethal doses from the amount they'd eaten, I was far less sure about Petunia. 

So, when she left the pair of them on the sofa, nodding off while watching TV, to go upstairs and bathe, I followed. 

The woman ran herself a nice warm bath, then fell asleep in the tub. With a couple swabs of strong localized anesthetic I prepped her wrists and inner thigh, right over some major blood vessels so as not to wake her up, then slit them with a straight razor I put in her own hand so it would get her prints. The same with the pill bottles, the ones used both on her and on her family. 

Group suicide. Taking the boy in was just too stressful. They couldn't bear it. 

Total wand magic used: zero. 

I think the thing that disturbed me most was how easy that was to do. But I consoled myself in the strong belief that many who would have died because of Harry's inadequacies now stood a much better chance to live. It was either the Dursleys or people I actually cared about. It was that simple, and once I'd thought of it on those terms I felt much better about having done it. 

Though the wizarding world tried hard to ignore it, they were still at war, and by their abusing Harry as they'd done, the Dursleys had actually joined sides with Voldemort, after a fashion. Though he'd never call them his, and they'd never acknowledge him, they were doing his work in helping to destroy Harry. 

Would I be willing to kill a Death Eater? Yes! Emphatically so. So why not these people who did the same kind of work on the same side for the same man? 

And some of the things they'd done, lock a child in a cupboard and leave him withough food for weeks... there were places that would give them the chair for that. 

It's just that Ablus would never permit that to happen. 

Once things were placed on that footing I was able to absolve myself of guilt on that matter and continue on with my life. 

Not far away from the house, never having taken either my invisibility cloak or my gloves off since before entering the medical supply store, I grabbed my arm, feeling a sudden pain there where I'd made the injection. On seeing that was the place hurting, I didn't doubt that something had happened and made a point of picking up some antibiotics, perhaps getting a checkup to be certain. 

By then I was really looking forward to a rest anyway. 

OoOoO 

Author's Notes: 

I heard this wonderful phrase. It goes like this: Feedback is the coin of the realm. 

And you know what? I agree! 


	2. Chapter 2

My Gilded Life   
Chapter Two 

by Skysaber   
based on a challenge forwarded by Lionheart 

OoOoO 

When I awoke the next morning I was eager to go about my plans. In truth I had such difficulty getting to sleep the previous night, what with all of the ideas I had running through my head, that it was rather late when I arose. 

Oh well, such things happen. 

I sent off an owl to Dumbledore asking for recommendation as to a book or five on how to study Occlumency, then went off to work. 

Obtaining a Time Turner was the first item on my agenda, and my only real surprise was how easy this was to do. I wandered into the Ministry during the lunch hour, found most stations abandoned, wandered into the Department of Mysteries ready with a story about being lost while at the Ministry on legitimate business, only to find no one there and wander out a few minutes later with four Time Turners concealed in my pockets. 

Weird. I could only hope things were so disturbed because of the recent hubbub about my Death Eater captures and so on, as I could so easily see Minister Fudge giving pompous orders about 'getting everyone out in the field to search for others' or some other such nonsense, and didn't want to think that their security was that lax normally. 

Well, I left the Ministry and immediately discovered that you could only travel back in time one week by the Time Turners I had available. 

Still, a week was a good thing to have. I was about to go out and practice my magic somewhat when it occurred to me what week had just passed us by in reverse. Harry had been in the Hospital Wing when I'd gone back, ergo he was going to be facing Quirrel in the time that had only just now reversed. 

Well, I had in no way planned on this, but decided that I might take a stab at the opportunity as it passed by all the same. So I skipped on over to Hogwarts and, while hiding out in the Room of Requirement doing spell and magical training (an ideal place to do both, I might add), I awaited that momentous night of the rescue of the Stone. 

Invisibility cloaks are so useful! Once Harry and the others had gone down to the chambers below Fluffy I followed unseen, pacing them silently as they went from room to room. 

Bypassing the Devil's Snare, flying keys, giant chessboard and troll were all too easy, as I simply followed along as they opened each way. I gave Ron a good look once he'd sacrificed himself in the chess game, as that was his one true moment of solid heroism, ever really (I didn't could facing the spiders as I did not believe it was something he'd have done if he'd known what he was getting into beforehand). 

But he was fine, just stunned a bit really. No real harm done. 

The Fireproof Potion was actually something listed in Moste Potente Potions, interestingly enough. Amazing what you can discover when you really need to know something and have a place called a Room of Requirement. I just went in with that desire in mind and found myself facing a reading stand with that book on it opened to the relevant page. 

It wasn't even all that hard to brew, which was a good thing as I truly wasn't all that good at brewing them. I'd inherited Lockhart's skills, and he stank. Thankfully, I knew enough from my cooking experience about how to follow a recipe, do that carefully enough and it does not take many attempts before you have success. And the ingredients had all been there waiting. 

But I did not follow Harry immediately through the flames. No, I was pretty sure that if I did so Quirrel and Moldy would discover me, and that would change the events as they ought to come to pass. 

I was taking over the position of a blowhard and a coward. Being neither, I would not be in that position for long, however the skills that I had available sucked, and I would be a long time improving them before I felt any degree of comfort in facing down my foes in a stand up fight, and even then I wouldn't be willing to risk facing the big nasties for the foreseeable, as I did not have Harry's 'Author's Fiat' protecting me from a nasty and unwelcome death. 

Listening closely, I was able to tell by the shouting who was doing what and when it all ended. As it concluded I drank my potion and darted swiftly through the fire, finding a scene on the other side pretty well represented by the original movie. 

Plucking up the Philosopher's Stone, I replaced it with a fake provided by the Room of Requirement, a bit of amethyst I'd brought myself really, given the appropriate shape and radiations for a few hours by the Room, and I also snatched up Quirrel's wand before heading back out of the exit. 

According to Rowling, via Ollivander, in the very last book, a captured wand will function almost as well for the one to defeat its user as a chosen match, or one that had selected you by choice. 

Well, having spare wands was always handy. I'd taken two off of Pettigrew when I'd had the chance. One was his own, and I was sure that would work for me as I'd rather soundly defeated him. The other was Voldemort's, the very wand that was brother to Harry's own and had caused him so much trouble. 

I had no doubts at all that Peter had tried to use that one once or twice, either in attempts to make it find its master or out of curiosity as to whether he was 'worthy' of using that wand in Voldemort's place. And, well, if he'd used it then he was a user, not a very good one, I was sure, but having taken it from him all the same, I had defeated it's last user and therefore it ought to respond to me. 

That was something to explore later. 

I hadn't defeated Quirrel, but Harry had, and perhaps he could use a spare wand later. One thing I was sure of was that if the underage magic detection system worked by placing charms upon wands (and I saw no reason why it shouldn't, and it made perfect sense that it should - wands were presented in such a fashion that it would be easy to do, and it would be a very practical approach), anyway, if that was the method used, then now Harry had a wand that would not trigger those detections. 

It was something to experiment with at some future point. 

Now in the rather happy possession of a Philosopher's Stone (and rather amazed to be so as I'd never dared list that among my goals), I made my way out of those chambers and back to the Room of Requirement, where I required a way to stay hidden from Albus should he choose to search the castle. Oh, and as long as I was waiting I should like to train. 

No Problem. 

I had been training so far by making use of the one gifted skill I had, memory charms, in a rather unusual way. They could be used ordinarily to make one forget memories, or to implant false ones, but in this case I had recalled a little known specialty (and Lockhart had once bragged that he'd been rather gifted with memory CHARMS - note the plural) concerning how to use a much milder version to reinforce a memory already there. 

Simply spoken, I used those oft-neglected charms to help me remember better, recalling things like Lockhart's school days and those lectures and demonstrations he had slacked off through. 

Well, I had no intention of slacking off any longer and wanted those skills, so by reinforcing the memories of lessons I had largely missed out on the first time I was able to recall them once again to use as practice material and rush through a rather large volume in much the same way as a pensieve helps one in both reviewing and organizing memories. 

So, in spite of having paid not very much attention to those at the time, I could review them now and gain the value of those as if I'd actually been attentive the first time. Although it did require some amount of practice to get those skills down right, it had the advantage of going by much faster. 

Nevertheless there was so very, very far to go and so much to cover. And this creep didn't even take all of the right classes, so I'd be totally on my own for most electives and NEWT level subjects. 

And lets not even begin to discuss postgraduate studies. 

As far as I was concerned, a Hogwarts education was only the beginning of what I needed to know. After all, none of those mages accounted powerful had stopped there. Moldyshorts and Dumbledore were both known to have studied further after Hogwarts. And the only younger mages I respected, Fred and George Weasley, well... there was no way they'd learned all that stuff in their classes. 

Speaking of those guys, it was approaching 'present time' so I made my way out of the castle and off to the Weasley home, figuring using the morning of the day I'd slept in on was going to do no harm to anyone. And, if it came right down to it, I WANTED to be seen elsewhere during that time I was off robbing one of the secretive areas of the Ministry. 

It was called an alibi. What? You think I did that horrid crime? No way! How could I when I was off over there at the same time doing something else? Look, I have witnesses! 

That would be a certain defense in a muggle court, but I didn't know about a wizarding one, who should know about things like Time Turners. 

Sigh. Everything is legal until someone figures out how to do it. 

I had already discovered that a Time Turner would not allow you to be in more than two places at once, so you could only go back to repeat a day once, no more. Thus, it was important that I use my time wisely, despite having twice as much of it IF used well, as I couldn't just run up an infinite number of 'me' as I'd seen in some fanfics. 

Pity. 

So, bright and early that same morning I'd once slept through, I sent a letter off to Amelia Bones, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, explaining that while I'd been interviewing at Hogwarts, Harry Potter had been in the hospital wing, and that I'd overheard someone talking about how Madam Pomphrey had found signs consistent with past child abuse, including at least one broken arm. And I was wondering what the follow up to that had been? 

It was only after I sent the letter that I recalled how dead empty the Ministry had been that day, and rather guilty concluded that all of those Unspeakables and Aurors and, well, just about anyone else in the Ministry would probably have all been off investigating those allegations of crimes against the Boy Who Lived. 

True enough, and the next day's paper would be a scandal sheet carrying the headlines pertaining to Harry's awful home-life situation, and how Aurors had broken into the Dursley home, under arms, intending to arrest and then question the family, only to find all three Dursleys dead. But there was more than enough physical evidence of his appalling treatment, including especially one cupboard under the stairs, to convict them in everyone's minds. 

Poor boy. It hurt so much to be famous sometimes. Others? Well, others (if you knew how to use them right) could be so amazingly useful! 

Like now, for example. 

Any rabid fool who looked into Harry's situation in the least degree would find that it was Albus Dumbledore who put Harry there. It was unavoidable that would be discovered, and when it was... whew! He might not survive that with his career intact, but he certainly wasn't going to be getting away with any discrete, behind the scenes meddling to control Harry's life for a while. 

Or so I hoped. 

Actually, it was downright useful to me that it was the Aurors and not any muggle law enforcement agency that discovered the Dursley's corpses, as the muggles did things like investigate crime scenes and they had this nifty science called forensics, which stood a good chance of finding out clues even when you'd been fairly careful about not leaving any. 

You could never be sure that muggle police wouldn't find something if they went looking. They were that good at their job. On the other hand, however, the wizarding government was far too quick about rushing in, making a first impression, and then erasing all evidence so the muggles didn't get involved. 

So that meant I was almost certainly free and clear. 

This was, however, getting ahead of ourselves. That paper was still one day from coming out, and this was certainly going to be a week for banner headlines. First two Death Eaters taken down by myself, now the Potter Scandal. I had little idea how right I was, as the next day would have the paper's report of Peter Pettigrew getting Dementor kissed. But that was all still in the fairly near future. 

No, for now I still had another productive day to spend. 

So, I approached Hogwarts once more. It was still one week almost to the day before school let out, but I had to get some things moving with certain kids there and I felt now would be a good time to do so. 

Due to the excellent tutorial and books available in the Room of Requirement, as well as my own adaptation of memory charms to enhance recollection, I had done an amazing amount of catching up, truly staggering. I could almost call myself... sigh, at the point where I'd consider that I'd mastered slightly less than half of the first year curriculum. And that was the easy stuff. 

No, I'd be a good, long time recovering my magical skills to where they ought to be at this rate. Curse the original Lockhart for a lazy fool. A charming one, but still a lazy fool. 

And yet, still that charm kept proving useful as a certain Transfiguration teacher met me almost just inside the school gates. 

"Ah! Professor McGonagall," I bent low over her hand and kissed it, causing a small blush to erupt on her face if I was not mistaken. I arose again with a charming smile on full bore. "How could I have been so remiss? I allowed our last engagement to be interrupted. Well, I owe you a meal, if you'll have my company?" 

This last got asked with a gallantly raised eyebrow and tilt of the head, to which she responded with a small smile of her own as I silently confirmed the presence of a delicate, hardly there blush just barely touching the sides of her cheeks. 

Excellent. 

Still, my facade never faltered as I made this information mine, and she took my hand, accepting my company as we went to the Great Hall together once again, where I did a very gentlemanly role of holding her seat for her and in all other ways being an attentive and appreciative date, to all appearances holding her age of no concern. 

She was quite evidently flattered, even in spite of herself. 

Well, snide quips aside, flattery will get you places. Often places most people would be reluctant to let you go, until you've buttered them up enough that they'd hold the door open for you and ask you to help yourself to what would once have been against their better judgment to even let you come near. 

And Lockhart easily had that kind of charm. He couldn't sustain it for any great length of time, so the man preferred to butterfly, flitting about so as to never let the charm of his appearance linger long enough to go sour. But for those initial few moments... ah, yes. He could be charming indeed! 

But then, the primary reason he could not sustain it for any length of time was that he was only surface deep, using that excellent charm to conceal quite a few character flaws. Considering that I had fewer flaws than he to hide, I should be able to keep this up for proportionately longer. 

So, realizing that the best conversationalist must also be a good listener, I kindly informed my dear Professor that in truth I knew very little about her, then drew her out to talk about herself - a subject most people rarely get enough of, yet few indeed want to listen to. 

Which, people not wanting to listen was a big reason why most folks didn't get to talk about themselves very much. So, being willing to listen when a body talked about themselves... most of the time they'd peg you as a brilliant conversationalist and recall you very fondly for years. 

And, humans were weird in certain ways. It's like we were wired that way, so just like getting the oil changed on a car, they had to talk about themselves periodically to feel healthy. 

So, I was presently performing that service for McGonagall. 

Now, to do this properly you had to pay attention. You couldn't just space off or be at all uninterested. You had to prompt with questions, and you had to recall what she'd said before. But if you did all of that, well, you practically had a friend for life with that, and a few token payments afterwards. 

I was able to do that for McGonagall, or Minnie as she now insisted I call her. And quite to my surprise, afterward she insisted on taking me to her suite so that I could look at pictures of all of the people she had mentioned in her discourse, and see some of the books our conversation had referenced. 

There comes a barrier, a buffer if you will, in this sort of thing, a point where your mind rebels as it reaches the 'too much information' stage where you honestly cannot hear another thing about her dear uncle Jones or whoever and still recall it all. 

Just like eating too much at one meal. You had a certain capacity, and a small measure by which you could exceed that going from full to stuffed, but beyond that point it just wasn't possible to take any more in, and trying may well cause you to erupt, ejecting all you'd taken in before. 

I was approaching the 'mental barf' stage when I made my excuses about tiredness and excused myself from further conversation about her life story and family, and school, and favorite students, and good lesson points, and... 

GAH!!! 

Ok! Having reached the 'too much' stage, and realizing that I'd been somehow shanghaied from late-ish morning until well into the evening, having had lunch together in the Great Hall and dinner in her rooms (which, contrary to some speculations, were NOT all in Gryffindor colors), I bid her goodbye for the evening and made my way out into the corridors. 

To my own surprise I'd learned quite a bit about the relentlessly respectable lady. There was so much more to the current Head of Gryffindor House than I'd ever imagined. 

But, then... Rowling was not exactly in the habit of fleshing out her major (or minor) characters. We still didn't know Hermione's parents' names! 

Still, I had to have some time to review and process all that 'Minnie' had told me or I'd forget it all, and go back to knowing nothing more than Rowling had grudged us about the lady of iron discipline I'd just spent an afternoon with. 

A very surprising afternoon indeed. Who knew that she had war experiences as a little girl during the Battle of Britain? Or that little mages had flow around on brooms at low altitude detonating bombs in the air? Or that so many unexploded bombs were because of wards set on the ground? 

I'd had no idea, and once you'd steeled yourself to follow it, her conversation really was fascinating. For example, I'd known about war rationing, but never imagined that wizards had been affected or potion ingredients became rare or hard to find. Although I could see invisibility cloaks and dragon hide armor becoming rare and highly sought after items, with a vastly reduced supply. Most of the raw material for those items came from Axis occupied territory, after all. And what didn't still had to be shipped, so with everyone wanting it but supplies not forthcoming... 

Yah, I could understand some people willing to engage their daughters to get a cloak or a dragon hide robe. But I positively NEVER would have pictured a seven-year-old McGonagall as one of those engaged! Least of all to a twenty something Jap submarine captain of all things! 

But the guy got sunk, and the shipments never made, so it had sort of fizzled away, but on a slow, lingering demise that left her out of the running for the few guys who had survived that great and terrible war. So, she was stuck as a 'future old maid' at the bright old age of seventeen and had lived alone ever since, or at least without family of her own. She'd been forced to take a position as a nanny for someone else's children right out of school, and that was where she'd learned to be firm, respectable, and no nonsense, concerned with tradition, discipline and rules (whereas in her school days she said she'd once been quite the little hellion). 

Terrible. What sort of things did we never bother to imagine about each other, than were nonetheless true? Somehow it all made me feel rather kindly to the old bird. 

Although, in support of her story I HAD heard that the shortage of guys in post World War Two Europe was so bad that millions of women could not be married - because there were not enough guys left to marry them! Snagging an American GI back in those days was considered the height of a European woman's ambition, and the boy-girl ratio problem had been so bad in Germany that a women's coalition had gotten together to petition their government to allow polygamy for a generation or two. 

But, no. I can honestly say that I'd never seen McGonagall, or excuse me, Minnie, as the sort of person who had such a rich tapestry of history behind her. I guess I'd always just seen her as a woman who'd been locked inside of a library all of her life, with maybe a husband and a few uninspiring kids back home. NOT the sort of person who kept a working panzer back home as a souvenir, and had once fired a schmisser in anger during a battle! 

Oh, but of course she hadn't hit anything. What do you expect of a seven year old girl? 

Actually, picturing that old bird as a small girl was a stretch in and of itself. There is some impulse in the young that causes them to believe the aged somehow sprang into existence with their wrinkles fully formed. Intellectually I knew it was false, emotionally... well, it was a hard urge to master. This, in spite of having seen her pictures of her family, including herself as a young thing from ankle-biter all of the way up to her late teens and beyond. Yet there was something vaguely spooky about seeing an old person like that as once having been young like you. 

One can almost feel Death itself standing over one's shoulder with a scythe when one contemplates how an old person was once young. It was unsettling, how the impermanence of youth was made clear to me in a scary and yet undeniable way. 

Who doesn't want to stay young forever? Or better, yet, never think about it? 

Just as I was about to descend the bumpy road of tumultuous thought in the general direction of despair over the inevitability of it all, I thought about that rock I had purloined not long ago in this very castle. 

Then, just as I was about to congratulate myself on living fast and dying young even if I lived to be a hundred and seventy, I recalled that I had no idea at all on how to use the dang thing! 

I knew that it COULD be used to create gold and Elixir of Youth, but no clue as to HOW! As the dang thing didn't come with instructions, and it wasn't a topic mentioned at all in the school library, I didn't know how I was going to find out, either, as I could not picture myself just walking up to Dumbledore and asking the question (the bit about the library I'd found, interestingly enough, on requesting such material from the Room of Requirement, then finding only an inscription on the wall revealed, stating that if something wasn't to be found in the castle, the Room could not produce it, and it functioned more in the way of an index, shuffling things around, than a 'create anything you want' chamber - oh, and it wouldn't steal a person's possessions either). 

Still, enough detritus, lost or discarded items, had accumulated over the millennia of the school's operation that it still remained enormously useful. 

But I was getting off track. I had some kids to find before they got away on me, and the hardest of those to find would be the Weasley twins. But also I needed to give some help to Harry, if I could. 

However, luck was not to be with me that night, and I hadn't been invited to stay. So, it was a quick floo trip to my own home (a rather nice penthouse that was showy and far too expensive for my tastes, as its rent ate up too much of my income that I'd already begun earmarking for other things) and from there on to another of my self-proposed assignments. 

You see, Lockhart had to have had material off of which to base those books claiming to have done events that he'd actually stolen, and I didn't think that hanging out in a pub overhearing someone brag to his friends would be enough to base a full novel off of (although, books in the wizarding world WERE short and rather light on subject matter, witness Rowling's two 'school books' she had published for charity). 

Still, that was what I'd often suspected, but upon arriving in this reality I had happily uncovered that relevant memory as to how he'd done it. So, as I went 'home', I suppose you could say, I went to a rather secret vault and pulled out a case of glass vials filled with silvery liquid, along with a small pensieve. 

The memories of those who had done those deeds that Gilderoy had bragged about and claimed credit for. 

There was an upper level specialty in the department of memory charms that caused the victim's memories to fall out of his head instead of merely erasing them. It did both, actually. So Lockhart could cause someone to forget their own deeds and gather his research material for claiming credit both at the same time. 

Doing this, the original Lockhart had been able to review those memories as many times as he'd wanted. He could (and had) gone over them again and again in search of those little details that caused his tales to come alive. 

The man was a gifted storyteller, but in order to do that well you need to know small facts as well as the big ones, the large as well as the seemingly insignificant, spices to flavor the main meal. It took a medley of details to make a good story, and you couldn't do that sitting down to interview a guy without going into so much depth as to make nearly anyone suspicious. 

No, the original Gilderoy had succeeded in this again and again, so given how incompetent he was at most things, that said he must have had an EASY way of doing it - And this counted. 

Glad to have confirmed this suspicion as fact, I took one of those bottles, a set that described the adventures my predecessor had recorded in his book 'Voyages with Vampires' and looked at it for a moment. 

I had no idea if what I was about to try was even possible. The Gilderoy part of me was terrified by the very idea of it, but the rest of me was quite at ease with the suggestion. No one that I knew of had tried this, and it wasn't the sort of situation you rushed into casually. But... 

Gilderoy Lockhart had gotten himself into quite a mess by claiming credit for deeds when he had no skills or talents to back up those claims. It was a bad situation and led to quite a mess. Frankly, the wizarding world (or any world) NEEDED heroes, and, paradoxically, if they had one in me they would lean less on Harry. Gilderoy Lockhart was actually famous enough that if the Dark Lord was to return today the people of magical Britain would be looking as much to me as to either Dumbledore or Harry. 

This could be a good thing. 

The more pillars you had supporting your culture the more likely it was to whether storms intact. In Rowling's books when Dumbledore had died and Harry had gone into hiding (at Dumbledore's last request) with the Dursleys, magical Britain had come apart at the seams and people panicked, leaving the whole thing open for Moldy to run through as he liked. 

Well, it was one of my intentions to train up Harry to be a better hero, able to survive some of those burdens he got by having the wizarding world expect him to save them all of the time. Dumbledore may die once again this time around, I personally doubted it would happen the same way, but it could happen. However, Harry was never going to be stuck at the Dursleys again. 

But! 

If I was still around, people would also be looking to me, and a right fool I'd be if I couldn't hold up my end of that bargain. So, in a way, Lockhart'd brought this on himself. By claiming to be a hero, getting people to believe he was a hero, he was going to be required to be a hero when heroism inevitably got called for in one of the many crises that were bound to happen. 

And, well, I wasn't about to get there on my own ability. Not on time, and certainly not from anything I'd inherited from Lockhart's own efforts. He was a complete fraud, unreliable at best, unfortunately. 

So, as much as it pained me to take the risk, I felt I had to all the same. I prayed about it and felt comforted. Then, having prepared letters in case I died or went mad or whatever, I sat down in a comfortable chair, placed the tip of my wand into that vial of liquid I held in my hand (then placed the bottle down on an endtable so that I stood no chance of dropping it) and drew out a long silvery string of memory, which I then fed inside of my head. 

Wow! What a rush! 

I'd empty that whole bottle into my temple before I went to bed that night. 

OoOoO   
Author's Notes:   
I'd like to thank my family, for their patience as I leave them and their world behind to go off on all of these self-insert adventures. And also my friends. May God bless you all! 

Oh. And please review? I get a kick out of it. 


	3. Chapter 3

My Gilded Life  
Chapter Three 

by Skysaber  
based on a challenge forwarded by Lionheart

OoOoO

As I awoke the next morning it was fairly clear to me that Gilderoy Lockhart, the original I mean, never could have survived doing what I had done with the stored memories he'd based his books off of. For one thing, those contained personality fragments and it took a strong will to overcome those and stay sane. My predecessor did not have a strong sense of self and so would have been overcome by them.

I, on the other hand, was of a considerably stronger sort. I had already taken blows that had destroyed me and rebuilt stronger each time. My beliefs and faith in God had brought me through in spite of my trials. This was nothing by comparison to some of those things I'd already gone through. And, to be honest, it wasn't all that different to having recalled Lockhart's life in detail, which I'd already done quite recently.

Rising off my bed, I took my wand and cast a spell, a smile lighting up my face as I called that a successful test. It was weaker than it should be, but not by terribly much, and it was one not in either my arsenal or in Gilderoy's specialty - It was one gained by absorbing those memories of the man who'd done the deeds off of which Lockhart had based that book.

Oh, I had no details of his life other than those written in the book, and they were converting even as I thought about it to where it was Gilderoy standing there doing things, just as he'd written them. People misremember things all of the time, so it was no surprise that my new personal self image was overwriting the original performers in those first person memories.

But the spell knowledge remained. Thanks to the new memories I KNEW, in my heart of hearts, deep down where you took the most convincing and where doubts lingered so easily, that I knew how to do this, despite intellectually knowing otherwise, yet the wand motions and incantations came clear as a bell to me. All else should come with a touch of practice to refine it. But I could do them already!

And that meant I actually stood a chance of surviving this.

I gave myself a schedule where each day I would wake up, answer my fan mail and then go about practicing all of the spells and other magic or useful skills I could recall from having absorbed a bottle of memories the night before. The scary thing was I had more bottles than books, things stolen from others that Gilderoy hadn't converted to novel form yet, most often due to lack of significant details (because of incomplete memory captures) or his own lack of inspiration concerning the conversion of important facts over to how HE could had done those things, instead of the originals who'd actually relied on help that Gilderoy himself could not have called upon.

There was also stuff too public to claim credit for. Most of his books had to be of the 'there I was, all alone in the..." variety, as he could not have any witnesses or they'd recall that it was someone else who'd done those deeds. And if he Obliviated all of them (as he'd once tried, then realized he could not follow through on) someone was bound to get suspicious that his 'comrades in arms' were all defeated and lacking those memories.

No, that guy had actually made several attempts for each fully successful one that he'd been able to turn out in book form. I'd have to go out on a limb and say that he was not a nice fellow, destroying all of those lives like that.

Still, some of those gaps for the incomplete ones, non-viewable in a pensieve, I could recall once having put the actual memories inside my head. Others I could logic through (a skill the original Lockhart was not strong on) as there had to be a series of events, often a fairly short one, covering a period going from what I could recall before the gap to what I knew from after. And, having a much more agile mind than the original Lockhart, I could imagine up ways to convert stories that he had given up on.

It was more than slightly sickening to do, but I did send out for a few reams of parchment, garbed myself quickly, then set out for a few auto-notes quills and a bunch of bottles of fresh ink (placing an order to have several sets of muggle fountain pens granted those same enchantments, as well as a few others). Then I settled down to some serious writing, churning out additional books in the series of amazing adventures of Gilderoy Lockhart, walking around my penthouse apartment dictating those adventurous tales while I practiced my wand movements and spells.

A little editing and I'd have nearly doubled the number of Lockhart's books in a week or so. And then doubled again over the course of the summer, easily, if not more. That gave me a huge library, which I wasn't even sure I was even going to publish, but if I did would mean an even greater reputation as well as a comfortable increase in money, all of which was of only a minor concern to me, but one other point was telling. If I did publish those adventures I would be giving an even greater impression of heroism to myself. For me this meant nothing, but for others...

People believed in symbols. They were important to them. They wanted to believe in something greater than themselves, something to trust and rely on when they themselves were insufficient for a task, or to face a danger.

If they believed in me that would annoy me, but it would also be something the wizarding public could cling to and draw support from when times got rough. I would be an anchor for them, so to speak, a symbol. Something like Dumbledore, where they'd all feel safer just for having me around.

Well, it wasn't something I had to decide on right away. Gilderoy Lockhart was already a hero and a symbol in the minds of the magical public. I placed the new books on a shelf near the door and made myself get on to other tasks.

My publisher would be dropping by later on that day to deliver new parchment reams and bottles of ink, so I left out a note for him, asking that he publish all of my books as matching volumes, all the same size and with matching covers, so they would look better as a collection on someone's shelf, and to have that ready before the rush for schoolbooks later on that summer.

My education from absorbing these events was sketchy and incomplete. Most wizards, it turned out, used a surprisingly limited selection of spells in their daily lives. Most stuck to a useful few for most circumstances. So, while I knew a great deal more about combat than I had before, a bit about healing and a few other things, I was in no way in possession of a comprehensive education by any stretch of the imagination. Although I had to admit to being something of an expert now on both Magical Creatures and household charms, although my potions skills were spotty at best, very unreliable.

Even so, I found myself gaining things I had not expected, a habit of twirling daggers about in amazing and somewhat frightening displays when my mind wandered, an urge to reach for a pipe (one habit that I firmly squelched), an unhealthy number of morning rituals ranging from preferred breakfasts to dressing myself up as a witch (a range of habits that also yielded under firm discipline, but took quite some sorting out), an urge to play banjo (that I did my best to cultivate when I discovered I was quite good at it) and piano and a few other instruments (and I'd always wanted to be a bagpiper), mostly of the portable variety, but whole ranges of quirks and idiosyncrocies and such that had to be sorted out and in most cases beaten down.

I also had a discerning taste in teas (of which I'd never touched a drop, and had no intention of starting as it was against my religion), fine wine (likewise) and had an encyclopedic knowledge of the various blends of coffee, when I'd much rather not ever have known about any of them, preferring to follow my faith and keep both mind and body pure.

The quality of Temperance was not very popular anymore, but I was good at it and intended to remain so.

But not all of the things were frivolous, useless, or downright harmful, there were quite a few skills and many useful reflexes. Two of the most interesting stories had been about near-squibs who'd used next to no magic at all. My predecessor had edited those stories slightly to include more spellwork, so he could appear more consistent with his other works, but the originals had been about people with so little useful magic they'd been forced to turn to other ways to defend themselves, and now I had the abilities, slightly rusty and very out of practice, of a ninety year old lifelong Shaolin monk, an eighty year old martial artist from Japan who studied several styles, and a French duelist older than Dumbledore who'd fought with live steel blades since he was a child, in and among a culture that was, back then, quite fascinated by swordplay when it was still a deadly art.

All of those skills stuck with me, and I'd found myself going through practice routines in the living room before dawn without even thinking about it.

So now I had a useful skill or two to go with my new memories. Heck, that Frenchman had been a classic musician and also a chemist later in life, with some significant fiddling around with experimental research - of course, all done in an era when plastic was quite a discovery, so it wasn't like he knew anything new, but he certainly had a good idea as to how we'd gotten to where we are today!

Lockhart had actually done quite a bit of collecting aged musicians of various sorts, as he'd liked to listen to their concerts and performances while in his pensieve. There he had perfect privacy, nor did he have to pay admission. I'd actually like to do a bit more of acquiring those skills for my own out of his collection. But the life-saving stuff first, of course.

And I guess that it should not have surprised me that Lockhart preyed upon the aged or infirm, as they had some of the most interesting stories over a longer period of time and fewer people would miss them or say anything if they suddenly lost all memory of themselves. Heck, some people took it as normal! They almost expected it when old guys lost their ability to recall! Which, did a lot to explain how he'd gotten away with so much of this, really.

I could now recall how Lockhart had gotten started on all of this, a memory he had shoved to the back of his mind for shame. There had been, in a rest home where he had been forced to volunteer by a formidable female relative (now deceased of natural causes, but his only living relative at the time, and he, still being fairly young, was under the authority of her guardianship) an old man well stricken in years, who had the most amazing stories, although none of the nurses would listen or believe him.

Gilderoy had been so struck by the amazing events that now old geezer had described had, upon leaving the assignment, gone and looked up one or two of the events referenced and found that they were true. He'd then returned of his own volition to hear more.

So amazing were those stories that he'd thought to share them with his friends, and youthful pride had made him want to claim them for his own. But as they pressed for further details he found himself adrift and unable to make reply, so they mocked him and called him a liar.

It was not so much a decision as a desire not to appear a fool before his friends that made him go back once more to hear the details, but the old man, now sensing the proud young man was trying to set himself up to be the author of his tales, refused to tell him more.

Already an Obliviator of some skill, yet unrecognized, eager for the attention and admiration he craved and angry at his friends and this old man he'd cast his best spell out of spite before he'd thought to check his fury, taking the memories of that old man by force so he could tell his story. Like a drunk who kills a man, unintending, he realized almost at once the enormity of what he'd done and gathered up those fallen memories as much to erase the evidence as anything. But once he had them, and viewed them, he gradually found he'd been able to tell those tales so fully fleshed in detail that no one could fail to believe him, and that admiration he received became a drug and he the addict, filled by a desire to fill his ever growing pride.

He'd been preying on the elderly ever since.

A despicable man, but the harm was already done and I saw no way to remedy that. Although I did see how I might honor those who'd fallen to his wand by making sure their legacies were not wasted on simple stories.

But now was not the time to go learning more, as I had appointments to keep.

The newspapers that week had been full of the fallout of the various events that I had put into motion. Pettigrew had gotten a trial, after which he'd been Dementor kissed. I'd used some of my fame to sneak in between the trial and execution of sentence to go into his cell privately and perform Lockhart's patented 'steal your memories' schtick on him, feeling that his memories of those Marauding days could be so enormously useful, if used properly.

If nothing else, they ought to be useful in befriending both Black and Lupin, and those would be good allies to have. Also, the Death Eater perspective should show a few things on that side, more effective than most any spy.

I wasn't planning to stick anything of Pettigrew's inside of my head, at least not yet, not until I'd reviewed them certainly, and carefully chosen harmless parts, if I'd end up taking anything at all, which still remained doubtful. But simply seen through a pensieve they ought to be informative, and I could use any advantage I could get; Not just to survive, but to thrive and defeat our enemies.

Enemies which seemed only to defeat themselves every so often when Moldy periodically shot himself in the face after bouncing a killing curse off of Harry.

No, that seemed a little thin as far as hopes to rely on, as each time it happened Voldy had already won anything resembling a civil war or pureblood rebellion and nearly taken over the magical world.

Barty Crouch Jr. had also been given a (second for him) trial and sentenced to the kiss, but I was unable to get close enough, or the necessary privacy to grab his thoughts. Pity, as it should have contained a different perspective and therefore extra data for analysis.

In plain English, more ways to hit Voldy's forces and make it hurt.

But then, I didn't want to spend too much time wallowing in Death Eater memories, as those were usually pretty sick and twisted. So I was probably better off not having too much exposure to that, in any form.

Sirius Black had been released from Azkaban, had a trial in which he was proven innocent at last and exonerated of all guilt. The Ministry had paid him a hefty amount of reparations, but they hadn't let him go yet, sticking him in a private ward of St. Mungos for rehabilitation, as you just didn't get out of Azkaban without some serious mental damage. The early prognosis was they'd be letting him out some time before Christmas next year.

I wasn't sure I could count on it. Every time Sirius got out of Azkaban somehow or other he ended up under effectual house arrest. It was fishy, and I suspected Dumbledore's involvement.

Still, no time to worry about that now. I headed to the door of my penthouse, knowing that I only had so much time to make my appointments for the shopping trip I'd planned, when I heard a knock on the door.

Foolishly thinking it was my publisher, I opened it and found myself staring at Albus Dumbledore.

I quickly averted my eyes.

Somewhat apologetically, the old man extended a hand, offering three books. I took them and looked them over in my hands, finding them to be on the mind arts, particularly Occlumency.

Finding it, to my surprise, enormously difficult to stick to the Lockhart persona and not offer him a formal bow in the oriental style, or heave a brick at the 'crazy English', I scrambled for a moment trying to recall which one among dozens of languages I had at native fluency English was. But then, to my surprise, my fan mail came to the rescue there, as I'd been doing that all week and it had quite unexpectedly assisted me to keep a hold on 'Lockhart' and not lose him among those others I was both suppressing and integrating.

I resolved right then not to do so much of this at a stretch again, or to put myself in isolation while doing it, lest I lose more than I knew.

"Thank you, Albus," I gave him a nod, but he seemed grave so I knew this was far from the end of this conversation, so I invited him inside. Leading him to a plush, overstuffed sofa in lilac (my new favorite color - blame Lockhart) he sat down, and after accepting my offer of sweets, got right to the point.

"Gilderoy," he began, in heavy tones that said whatever it was he felt it was quite serious. What? Was he firing me? Was the curse on this job working so fast? But he went on to a different topic, "I have some grave concerns. You have surely heard that Harry Potter is going to be one of your students for the coming year?"

"Yes," I admitted flamboyantly. "That was, in perfect honesty, one of my most pressing reasons for applying for the post, as I feel he, at least, needs the best education we can offer on Defense Against the Dark Arts, as surely all future Dark Lords will feel he is a target they must take down."

Albus sighed. "Regrettably, I feel this must be so. Still, we cannot deny him a proper childhood." I found myself glad that I was able to avoid wincing at that - but he went on still, "And there are some rather special circumstances that prevail for the boy."

"Oh?" I lofted an eyebrow and concentrated on serving him tea, which I noted out of the corner of my eye caused him surprise at my spellwork.

Fair enough. He'd used Legilimency during our first interview. He had to know that 'I' was a perfect fraud, or at least I WAS.

Now I was actually quite grateful that the original Lockhart had used his own special way to track down an aged or dying witch or two to translate their own experience in housekeeping magic into a book or three for his image.

Dang useful stuff, that.

But he overcame his astonishment and continued on, "Yes." I could perceive that the man was uncomfortable that I was not playing into his hands, giving him a better opening to draw off of. But he got serious, his face clouding as he bent forward, lacing his hands together over the untouched teacup. "You see, when his mother died, she sacrificed herself for him. I believe it was this sacrifice of his mother's love which enabled Harry to resist the killing curse and fling it back upon his attacker."

I begrudged him a nod. "That is possible, but we may never know for sure."

No, actually Rowling had done her best to make it flaming obvious, always harping on it like that was Harry's one saving grace. Annoying. But it was fun to fling the old man's words to McGonagall, giving on the Dursleys porch as they were about to leave Harry there in that abusive situation, back in his face. Especially as he couldn't know that I was quoting him.

He actually seemed more surprised at that comment than before, yet he composed himself and continued speaking. "It is vital that Harry have a chance to dwell in a home where his mother's blood lives on in order to recharge this irreplaceable protection."

"And yet, according to the papers, the family he was dwelling with were not only unsuitable as parents, they committed mutual suicide rather than take him back." I mentioned conversationally as I took a sip of orange juice.

"Yes," the old man nodded gravely, or so I could see from his beard bobbing about anyway, as I was keeping my eyes no higher than his chest. "I have spent much of my time, since hearing the sad news, on a search for other relatives, anyone who has even the slightest relation to Harry's mother, so that I could see that he could gain a place with them and perhaps restore his protection. I cannot begin to stress how important this is."

I nodded again, wishing he would get to the point. Then I decided to tell him that. "I'm sorry, but how does this involve me? Are you hoping that I would make an appeal to whatever parents you've found? If so, leave me a note with their names and address, and I'll consider it. But I really have to be going or soon I'll be late for an appointment. I have to be by my bootmakers..."

With that Albus cut me off by the surprising measure of reaching out and plucking off the invisibility cloak that young Harry was wearing, revealing the boy standing there in his Dursley castoffs and toting his owl cage and trunk in his hands as luggage.

I may have accidentally sprayed my latest sip of orange juice over Albus, but I was quick to offer up napkins.

Albus Dumbledore was now offering up a genial smile, feeling he had me over a proverbial barrel. "No, nothing like that. You see, I have found that no one on this planet has a greater proportion of Lily's blood than you do, almost as much as Harry himself in fact. So I came here hoping you would take him in."

I stared at him, shocked. I remembered that infusion, only it should have expired long before now. Okay, then I recalled that sharp pain in my arm after having killed off the Dursleys. I'd been meaning to get a doctor to look at it, but had never taken the time, and gradually forgotten as it ceased to be a problem.

Now I could recall it, and some part of me wondered right then if some magic or other (I was still no expert, so had no clue) hadn't decided that as the one on site, bearing some of Lily's blood at the time, I was the next one in line so I'd somehow been altered so I could be the heir to her protective legacy.

Given how persistent Rowling's Deus Ex Machina was, it was probable actually.

Looking at Harry, me heart melted. The kid looked so hopeful. I set down my glass. "Okay, Albus. I see where you are going with this. But first, a few things before I take him in. This apartment," I shrugged my hands to indicate it, "Is a bachelor's pad. It's hardly an appropriate place for children. I'll be willing to give it up and settle down IF you can arrange a place for us to live. It has to be large enough for parties and all that I do here, with a private study where I can write my books in peace, and another one for Harry's use, as he should have homework and things that it helps to be able to spread out. I've been meaning to set up a Potions lab anyway, and a greenhouse, some space to practice spells would also be ideal, as I've been meaning to continue my education. Also, we require sufficient bedrooms not only for Harry and myself, but guests so that he can have friends over. We will also require a yard, a several acre lot that can be, or ideally already is, fenced for privacy. As we are both public figures, some place of our own away from the prying noise of crowds is a requirement if we are to relax and be ourselves. And no one can afford to be 'on stage' all of the time. I also prefer to own rather than rent, as the security is far more certain that way."

Albus was smiling broadly now, and Harry's grin could almost split his chin.

I pressed on, fearing that I wouldn't get another chance at this, and the more I could arrange at this moment the fewer headaches I'd get later. "He will also be needing some funds of his own. I know I heard his parents left him a trust to cover school costs, but I see by his outfit, and only one trunk, that he is going to be needing so much more. I shall take him shopping with me today and we will send you the bill for his out of school accouterments. I'd pay for it all myself but I'd already earmarked most of my current funds for other projects, including supplies that I shall be needing for school, both in and out of Hogwarts."

"Yes, of course. I'll have it all arranged." Albus was standing, smiling broad.

I stood up along with him, fearing he might escape before I made my next demand. "Also, Albus," I allowed my tone to get serious. "Something has to be done about Potions education. I was hoping you and I, and Harry as well of course, could go talk to Slughorn and ask him to return to Hogwarts."

Dumbledore's face was serious now, turning grave. "I am afraid that post is already filled," he solemnly informed me.

"Yes, I know." I nodded, still not conceding the point as I raised a finger. "However, Snape is a Death Eater. And while I know you trust him, he is not an ideal teacher. So, for the benefit of the students, I am afraid that I am going to have to insist that you find some other work for him, away from school. By the man's attitudes, he should not be allowed near students, and if you ask around I'm sure you'll discover the evidence agrees with me."

His eyes were twinkling now as he dismissed my arguments. "I am sorry, Gilderoy, but I..."

"Have welcomed into your school the Death Eater who overheard part of the prophecy that, once he'd faithfully passed it on to his master, led directly to Voldemort killing off Harry's parents." I finished for him, cocking a confident and self-assured eyebrow at the man, who now reeled in shock.

With a not terribly kind smile, I added. "I wonder what the people would feel if I were to tell the press that information? Your situation is already precarious enough, Albus. I hear Lucius is moving to replace you, and we both feel that he would be bad for the school. Let your Death Eater go. Hire someone who can actually teach the course properly and does not abuse the students. That's all I ask. I'd prefer for it to be Slughorn, but anyone but Snape would do. After all, if you are doing this to preserve his cover you have already shown Severus far too much loyalty. Don't compromise him with kindness."

The man stood there very solemnly, thinking over what I'd said.

I put my hand on his shoulder. "We can all go together to deal with convincing Slughorn to come back. I'll clear my schedule for it tomorrow. I'll even pick up some candied pineapple while we're out."

He looked at me in some astonishment, but mumbled agreement as I opened the outside door. As he allowed himself to be led out, I offered one more suggestion to his departing back. "Oh, and one more thing you ought to lend some thought to: consider hiring Molly Weasley to teach a new elective on Housekeeping Magic. I know I graduated hardly able to do a thing around the home and it's been a dreadful experience making up for that lack. Also, I hear that her youngest child is joining us next year, so it's not like she'll have the same obligations at home. And I know she can use the income."

Immediately once he was gone, I turned to regard Harry, who was staring at me with wide eyes. "Did Snape really betray my parents?" he asked.

"Snape betrays everyone who isn't Snape," I returned, hurrying quickly over to find pen and parchment before I forgot something. "And even then I feel he may slip up every once in a while and betray himself by accident, he's so accustomed to doing it to others. Did you honestly think that he'd hold a multi-generational grudge for the fun of it? He hates you because he was a bully and your father stood up to him. How fair is that?"

Somehow, in that moment, I had won tons of Harry's affections.

"Harry," I asked of him." Could you take Hedwig out of her cage? I want you to write a letter, to one Nymphadora Tonks." I spelled it out for him, then again once he had spilled out his trunk looking for writing supplies, a search that I preempted by shoving a quill of my own collection into his hands, and parchment to go with it. We shared the same ink bottle as I wrote. "And ask her to come by this apartment, this evening, to interview for a position as your tutor for the summer."

"Why would I want a tutor?" he stopped writing to ask me.

"Several reasons. One, she is only a few years older than you and has already passed most of the Hogwarts courses. She should be graduating this year, in point of fact, so she knows better than most what you'll be learning there and has it still fresh in her mind. Two, she qualified for Auror school, which is the magical police, and quite tough to get into, so she knows her stuff and can also serve as a bodyguard."

I drilled him with a friendly look. "Now, Harry, don't go telling me you don't need one. The first time you went to the Leaky Cauldron the crowds would have shaken your hand off if Hagrid hadn't been there to save you. And what if you run into Draco and his friends while out shopping? It would be well for you to have an adult along who can use magic without getting into trouble, and who can support you if you have to tell who started what. I can't be by your side all of the time, and you wouldn't grow as much if I could. But most important of all, Nymphadora Tonks, or Tonks as she prefers to be called, is a Metamorph - she can change her appearance more easily than you change shoes. That means if you have that gift, as I suspect you do, then she will be able to train you."

I paused on my own to look at him directly. "You don't like being famous. I don't blame you. it can be a burden, and you are right in that you never asked for it. However, one of the better ways to deal with fame is to have two or more faces. I have a way I act in public and another way I act when around my friends. Most celebrities like us have to do that, it's a coping mechanism, a way to deal with the fame while still staying who you really are inside. With you... you may be able to have more than one face in truth. That way, you could be The Boy Who Lived, Savior of the Wizarding World and all of that only when you have to, and put on some other name and appearance when you want to go out in disguise and have everyone treat you normally - just like anyone else. I actually envy you that ability."

I flashed him a smile. "Perhaps it's best to think of it all as a secret identity, sortuv like being a super hero. You have the public persona that has all of the fame and troubles with bad guys, then the private person, the real you that no one other than your close friends know."

I stood, and noticed Harry was regarded me in awe. "How do you know all that?" he asked in hushed tones.

I favored him with a confident wink. "It is a more common problem than you know. Most people want to be famous only until they get there. Most famous people wish they weren't. It's a bit like being a wizard, really. Famous people can do things that ordinary people can't, just like a wizard can use magic and most people can't. However, wizards also have to deal with dark wizards and dragons and curses as well, it's not just all of the fun and useful spells. So there is both benefit and drawback to both fame and magic."

I bent over, placing my hands on my knees to look at him in the eye on a level with his face. "Only fame can also be compared to having a lion in your basement. If you take the time to train the lion you have a useful friend. It can protect you and watch out for you, even perform tricks to amuse your buddies. However, if you try to ignore the lion or pretend that it's not there, instead of being your ally it becomes an enemy, and if it gets hungry enough it can break out and hurt you. Having fame is something that you can't get rid of easily. So keep it fed, tame it and train it and make it your friend, or one day you will regret it."

I gave him another wink, patting him on the shoulder as I stood up again and handed my now-complete letter to my owl, Oedipus (a name and animal I had inherited from the original), and told him "Take this to Dobby the House Elf, Malfoy Manor."

The letter, very simply, said, "Dear Dobby, I know of the plot to open the Chamber of Secrets this year, and the basilisk within. Harry will be under my personal protection all year, so should be perfectly safe. Please do not try to stop Harry from going to school next year or intercept his mail. Thank you, Gilderoy Lockhart. PS. Please don't let your master or his family learn of this letter or its contents, as it would upset him greatly and make him unhappy to know about it, and he would so much rather stay happy."

"Have you finished your letter then?" I asked of him, and Harry swiftly returned to writing, before he tentatively questioned again.

"How could my being famous turn against me?" He queried, still writing even as his mind was slowly puzzling for an answer.

I sighed, relaxing into a seated position on the arm of the couch and crossing my hands over my knee. "Well, Harry. That lion wants to be fed. Look at it this way: People want to know about what interests them. You interest them. You may not like it, but your story personally affected each and every one of them. The wizarding world was in a losing war. People were dying every day. Every family lived in terror as each day more people died. No one was safe. They spent a substantial portion of their lives looking around waiting for the next attack to strike. Then suddenly, one day, it was all over. Gone. The bad guys defeated and on the run. No more families were being lost, no more lives ruined. You could hear a report containing the names of your friends without weeping in agony that yet more of those you'd loved had perished. People could go out and shop without the omnipresent terror or looking over their shoulders, waiting for death, or worse, to come and claim them. People could come out of hiding again. People who'd been on the run or living in the woods could return to their homes again. Men could go to work again without a dark and living nightmare shrouding every moment of their lives anymore. They didn't have to worry about the specter of a chance, always hanging nearby before, that one day a dark wizard might pop out from behind a corner and with one spell take control of his mind, then send him back to his family to brutally rape and torture his own children. Those things HAPPENED Harry! Often! And all of a sudden it was all over. Why? That was the first question on everyone's minds. How did it happen? Who saved us? Once it was all over the only thing people wanted to know, other than if their loved ones had survived, was how that great and dreadful danger and all that fear came to an end. You were the answer, and whether you like it or not, you became important to those people for the rest of their lives. And there is NOTHING you can do to change that! You will be important to those people for as long as they live, and 'those people' includes the whole wizarding world."

He'd stopped writing again and was looking up at me in shock, searching for comprehension or a handle on the enormity of that statement, and I could so easily see that he'd never properly understood the source of his fame before.

I took another deep breath and resettled myself into the pose. "And now for your question: How can your fame turn and bite you? It works like this. Those people to whom you are important are interested by you. They want to learn, to know more about you, probably as much as you like to learn magic. It is like a hunger that has to be fed. They want to KNOW! And if you tell them something, a few bits at a time, they will stay satisfied. It doesn't have to be much, just enough to let them feel in contact with you. You are, for lack of a better term, a security blanket that reassures a young child that it is safe and all is well. They want to make sure that you are still there every now and then. If you go missing they start to panic and look for you, desperate to feel safe again. If you stop feeding that desire, they feel betrayed, and then their interests turns negative."

I paused, looking down to regard him kindly, as I instructed further, "You know those school pictures that every child has to take every year in muggle schools? The ones that the Dursleys dressed you up in your least worn clothes for and even fussed a bit to make you look right, but they never bought any copies of? Albus Dumbledore bought them, then he turned right around and released them to Wizarding newspapers that wrote stories about how you were prospering in their care and still alright. Total lies, but it was what the public wanted to hear, and THAT! Is how your fame can bite you, Harry, because people want so much to know about you that when they hear anything, good or bad, they are likely to believe it!"

I could see now that I had his full attention, so I hit him with the most important parts. "If you are the one telling your story you control what they hear, which means the truth, but also leaving out some embarrassing parts. However, if you tell them nothing then as sure as I am sitting here someone else will tell them something, and it will probably be lies, because they didn't know any better themselves and had to make it up. There are lots of reasons for them to do so. By pretending to know more about you than their friends they get some admiration and appreciation, they feel important, and people like to feel important. So people have done all sorts of crazy things to feel that way, including tell some lies. Also, there are other people to consider, reporters and newspapers make money by printing stories about you, as more people buy the papers with those stories. And they like to have money, most everyone does, so they like to make more of it. So if you aren't telling them things that they can print every so often, there is a strong temptation to make up something, just to sell more papers. But people will believe them because you don't tell them any differently."

Okay, I could see in his eyes and face that he was following me so far. That was so great a relief I could hardly tell you. I nodded to confirm that I'd noted that he was listening. "Now, when that happens, people will look for you as you ought to be if those lies were true. But you aren't that person, because those were lies. So people who think they know about you come upon you and yet you act differently than they expect. That's bad. It's called 'not living up to your image' and what happens then is that people blame YOU for the lies! It doesn't matter who is responsible. They don't care. You are the owner of your own image, and if you don't take care to live up to that it is ALWAYS YOUR fault! Logic and reality don't make any difference. This is an emotional reaction straight from the gut. People don't think about it, and never listen to any explanations. If your image says you are one thing and yet you are another, YOU are the one they blame."

Seeing he was still with me, I moved on to wrap up this little lecture with a final few points. "It's not fair, but it is as real as you standing there. Not liking the attention doesn't make any difference, and trying to stay away from prying eyes will only make them pry harder to get a glimpse of you. There is only one proper way to handle this, Harry, and that is to treat fame like a dangerous animal that must be fed. If you don't take care of it and train it to work for you, it will go wild and could destroy you - and not just you but each and every person you love."

I shrugged my shoulders. "Sorry. That's the way it is. I didn't make it be that way, and I can't change it. I don't know anyone who can."

"But..." Harry had left his partially finished letter and was struggling for words. Looking up at me, he objected, spreading his hands. "But I don't! I'm not the boy they think I am! I already don't fit my image!"

Smiling once again, I patted him on the cheek. "No, Harry, you don't." I told him gently, standing up, I moved toward the door. "But things are still early enough for us to change that. You can tell 'The True Story' of your life so far, and people will still believe it." I gave a friendly snort, turning around to favor him with my most reassuring grin. "I'll even help you write it. And after that, an article or two every year or so should keep everyone happy."

"But I don't want all of those people to know everything about me!" He shook his head, still objecting to that part of the principle and not fully getting it.

I bent over to grin conspiratorially into his eyes from an inch away, positively radiating warmth and camaraderie, as if sharing a treasured secret. "Harry, that's why WE write it!" I patted his shoulder, still not breaking the gaze. "And we do that so we can tell them all of the stuff that you don't care about them knowing, or they may already know - how your grades in school are doing, what your favorite sport is, all of the stuff that doesn't truly matter and that people could probably find out anyway, but the public will eat up. Then we DON'T tell them about the private things - like who your best friends are, what you do when you aren't studying, what you like to eat, and all of the stuff that makes you a person instead of a picture. Get it?"

I gave him a megawatt smile.

His face had discovered awe, and he looked up at me on the dawning of a beautiful understanding, finally grasping the point I'd been trying to get across.

"but..." he stuttered, struggling still for full comprehension as he got the main part but had trouble with the details. "But won't that be lying? Won't I still fail to measure up to my image?"

"Harry," I shook my head sadly yet gently, chiding. "No one can know all of the details about you but you, and in spite of how important you are most people will not want to try. Like that security blanket, all the child wants to know is that it is still there protecting him. He doesn't study every thread and ball of fluff all day long. He needs to know enough so he can recognize it and not to be taken in by fakes, but after that he just wants to know it is there. The people want to be satisfied that they know you, but that doesn't include every detail about everything. They do want to know probably more than you are comfortable telling them, but that is always the case. I have to put up with that. So does the Queen - and if you are objecting still to the fame that you were born to, look at her situation. She didn't get to choose her parents, either. Nobody does. And when it comes down to it, it was your parents that made you famous."

"So, how do you deal with that?" Harry turned trusting eyes on me.

I smiled again, a reassuring one. And yes, I knew that I smiled a lot. I admit it. But I had a whole arsenal of them. I could probably hold a whole conversation just using smiles. "Harry," I chided in very kind and gentle tones. "Don't you remember? I told you. We celebrities cope by having two faces, public and private. The private one is the one that can burp and scratch itself and pick its nose, or whatever. What? You think the Queen doesn't do those things? She doesn't have people do it for her, you know. And she eats, so what goes in one end must come out the other. But the 'private me' is the one that can do all of those things and be relaxed, it is the 'me' who can rest and be himself and do things that make me happy. The job of the 'public face' is to keep everyone ELSE happy! It is the one who has to be perfect and not use the wrong fork at the dining table and knows who to address in what order at social gatherings. It is that 'me' that gives speeches and dresses up in fine clothes and accepts awards, and it does all of those things so that my 'private self' can wear my pajamas all day long and hang out with my friends or oogle pretty girls or whatever during the off times. Do you get it? If I were my 'public face' and oogled a girl then the newspapers would have us all involved in a torrid affair the next morning. If my 'public face' had friends then reporters would hunt down those friends and pester them to learn all about me - including especially the parts that I don't want them to know."

I stood up, looking down on him in a fatherly way. "We divide our lives to protect them from people who want to know too much. That is how we cope."

I pointed to his still unfinished letter, and he quickly completed it, writing down a time I'd recommended and the address I gave him before tying it to Hedwig's leg and letting the bird go, whereupon she flew out an open window, off to deliver her message.

Then we went off shopping. I was indeed late for my appointment with the bootmakers, but considering that I'd brought Harry along they made every effort to assure me that wouldn't be a problem, and I got twice the service I would have gotten if that had just been me alone and on time as we, both of us, got our new boots.

I hate those stories that want to tell you every detail about what they bought, and in what order, how many pockets each article had, and all the while pretending that the only color is black. None of that interests me, and I wouldn't wear a black anything on a bet. Well, except perhaps ninja attire. But there we are speaking about practicality, not preference. And most of those who dress in black from head to toe all of the time could hardly sneak a cookie out of the kitchen without their mother noticing. The chains they also tend to wear have a habit of jangling and messing them up.

Pure amateurs.

No, I will let it suffice to say that we went shopping, and as Albus was picking up the tab we went a little rampant, buying more clothes than Harry had ever owned in his life. Probably more than Dudley ever had, certainly more than Petunia. Oh, while doing so we did make a careful nod or two to practicality. They had auto-sizing charms available that had a range of about two sizes or so. So I had them create all of Harry's clothes two sizes too large and let the charms slender them down til they fit. That way the poor boy could grow up four sizes before we had to replace all of his clothes again.

We also did the anti-stain, anti-wear packages for much the same reason, to have what we bought last longer.

The place where we really went wild was in the realm of toy, tools, and other practical stuff. I picked up my new writing set and ordered one of the same for Harry, because quills break and wear out and fountain pens don't, or not on anywhere near the same scale, really.

We bought wand holsters filled with every option imaginable (and demanded some that surprised the salesmen), got dragon hide armor and other nifty stuff. I also paid particular attention to the basic essentials necessary to good security, getting Foe Glasses and Dark Arts Detectors, a good strong Sneakoscope or five, and others Rowling had never mentioned.

We made up for a good dozen birthdays with Harry, then went on to fill up those missing Christmases, and once we were done with that we threw in an Easter and a Thanksgiving or two for good measure.

The kid had nothing and we had to remedy that.

By the end of our day our potion cupboard would have made Snape drool with envy, our tools for our future defensive setup might possibly have drawn a nod of acknowledgement from Moody, our prank supplies would have excited the Marauders, Draco would have felt I had spoiled Harry with toys, and Molly would have wanted to move into our kitchen while it would be hard to ever pry Hermione out from our book collection.

It was all for the Greater Good, of course!

OoOoO Author's Notes:  
Well, that was one wild ride! I'm having fun with this, and hope you are too. And has it never annoyed you that nobody ever tells Harry basic things that he ought to know?

Oh, and Alex, I'd love to get in touch with you but the stinking filters at ff dot net have stripped out a large party of your email addy.


	4. Chapter 4

My Gilded Life   
Chapter Four 

by Skysaber   
based on a challenge forwarded by Lionheart 

OoOoO 

When we got back to my penthouse I noticed that not only had my publisher come and gone, but the stack of books I'd finished was also missing as well. I sighed, resisting the urge to hang my head in my hands, as I thought about it. 

Oh dear, that was going to be one painful book signing later this year! I felt honestly sorry for those kids that might get confused about which of my books to buy, also. There were going to be quite a few available. 

Oh well, you might as well tell Snape to stop picking on Gryffindors as say to my publisher that he ought to put off making money on my novels. I had been careless to leave them by the door, but I honestly hadn't had that many open shelves! Oh well, probably time to have a knickknack burning, as all of those dainty little trinkets were going to have to move somewhere to open up some space. We had a library to be installing! 

I was just engaged in a process wherein I was designing a way to fling the odd stuff up high for practice shooting with spells when the doorbell rang. Harry started, and I gave him a wry smile. "What? Don't tell me you've forgotten about Nymphadora already?" 

His eyes opened in understanding, and I gave him a conspiratorial wink. "When I let her in, don't forget to call her Dora, as I'd much prefer that to her own chosen nickname of Tonks." 

We let the young lady in, and she stood nervously waiting in the foyer with her purse in her hands and her nose and hair constantly changing patterns as we welcomed her within. 

I decided to be kind to her. 

"Dora, you don't mind if I call you Dora do you?" I rushed on before she could give an answer, leading her within to set her down in one of our plush chairs. "You are here because I have heard, through certain sources, how you can be trusted with certain delicate responsibilities, and the fact of the matter is that Harry Potter is now my ward," I'd been surprised, astonished rather, at the extensive paperwork Albus had produced on that subject, all fully filed, notarized and completed with nothing I could do about it that I could tell. How he did so is still a question for another day. "And we were both concerned over his safety, but also his education. You've recently graduated Hogwarts, correct?" I seated myself opposite her and began the interview. 

She had brought both her OWL and NEWT results, and a surprised and hurried seeming pile of recommendations from various teachers, including Albus, all of which were favorable, although I noted there was nothing from Snape in that stack, so I mentioned it. "I note there is nothing here from your Potions Professor. Care to tell me why?" 

Tonks flushed and obviously struggled with herself as she sought for an answer. "Professor Snape," her hair turned bright puce and she fought down a grimace, rather unsuccessfully I might add. "He... doesn't care for me much." 

"Good!" I surprised her with a bright smile, standing up and laying aside the papers as I did so, reaching across the coffee table for her hand. "That says more about your excellent character than all the rest combined! Snape hates all of the best people I've ever known. Congratulations, you're hired!" 

The lovely metamorph was dumbfounded, complete caught off guard by my pronouncement, while Harry was snickering from where he'd been watching in the background. The story would be all over Hogwarts tomorrow over how Tonks had gotten a job on the strength of Snape hating her alone. That would, oddly enough, make the bastard's future classes that much more tolerable as future students overheard and spread that story around. 

For my part, I already knew enough about her from the books to know that I wanted to hire her. So I felt free to indulge myself in a moment of flair. 

I shook my head as if clearing if of unpleasant thoughts. "I don't know what I'd do if I liked anyone Snape did. But if he hates you, that's enough for me! You must be a good person. His favorites are all people I'd despise even if he didn't like them. So if he can't stand you, that's as solid a recommendation of your character as anyone ought to require. You start tomorrow. Is there anything you need before you begin your duties?" 

"Um," Tonks gulped, trying to get a hold of herself as her hair started settling down to a lovely shade of green. "What... exactly are my duties?" 

"Why, to protect and teach Harry, of course!" I replied, speaking grandly. "He needs a tutor proficient on Hogwarts subjects to help him improve his skills and knowledge base there, and you easily qualify for that. He also needs a bodyguard, an adult able to use magic and who can be with him at all times he is out of doors. Basically, we are hiring you to be his older sister. Look out for him, make sure people don't take advantage of him - he is very ignorant about certain things and is not very good at dealing with people yet. Despite his bravery concerning Dark Lords he is still fairly shy and reserved when it comes to ordinary people. Teach him what you can about that. But also, he has been kept in a cupboard for much of his life and needs to know about life in general. Take him places, show him around, have FUN! And teach him how to do the same, while doing your best to shore up his weak points." 

Tonks' face had been growing in confidence, her apprehension draining away as I said this, and by the time I reached the end she looked confident and eager to get going on her new project. 

"Your salary will include room and board." I then named a figure that clearly impressed her. "Sadly, because of the nature of your duties we cannot spare a great of time off. However, you may choose one day each week to have for yourself, to visit family and so on. I ask only that you let us know a day or so ahead of time to aid us in arranging schedules. Otherwise, you will be on call just about like any other responsible elder sibling. Should Harry ever wake up screaming from nightmares, then you or I will be rolling out of our beds to comfort him. And since I have appointments and requirements on my time fairly often, and will regularly be required to be at my best, especially as I take on the Hogwarts DADA professorship next year, most often the person among us who could spare to lose some sleep to comfort Harry would be you. But since the sleep lost would also be his, you could afford to catch up when he does." 

I could see they were both surprised and impressed by this, and Tonks also showed some reaction to my announcing I'd be DADA professor next year. 

Harry already knew, of course. 

I shrugged. "Otherwise, play with him. Teach him how to act around girls. Show him how to use those toys we bought him yesterday. Go flying with him, we have a few excellent brooms. Show him how to have parties, and while you are doing all of that, make sure that whatever he missed out on learning this year he catches up on. Also, one other thing, two actually." 

I saw I had both of their attentions. Good. "The first thing is, Harry is going to have a number of secrets. Keep them. If I find the Ministry or the papers or even Albus Dumbledore learned anything about Harry from you, you will be fired and I'll do my best to blacken your career from then on. And. Don't. You. Think. I. WON'T!" 

I could see I'd surprised them both with my vehemence. Now was the time to sooth that wound so it became a warning and not an error on my part. I gave a sigh and a smile, relaxing my posture so they would feel comforted and reassured. "I'm not the kind of guy who would do such a thing lightly, so I reserve that only for a willing betrayal of us on your part. You are being trusted with everything that Harry is. Information of that sort can easily destroy a person, even without meaning to, and there are many who would do so for their own personal gain. So, all I am asking is, don't be a tool for those people. I won't tolerate a spy who intends to report upon us to anyone, it doesn't matter who, or what they say their reasons are. Even well-meaning people like Dumbledore can be blinded by their own needs, or a desire to manipulate a situation by moving people around as if on a chess board. It is, sadly, an all-too-common failing for those who have gained positions of power. I am not saying that Albus would do so," well, not overtly, not yet, because neither of these two would believe me at this point. "But you are to treat him as though he would in any case. Part of that is from my own apprehension, due to the fact that Albus trusts Snape, and shares secrets with him, while Snape doesn't like any person in this room, and may go out of his way to harm any one of us." 

Okay, I could see both of them accepting that point. Excellent. I gave them both a considerate nod. "Very good. Now the first secret you will have to conceal is that Harry is a parcelmouth." 

Tonks jumped just like she'd just been stabbed by a pin, while Harry looked confused. I turned to address him. "A parcelmouth is a person who can speak to snakes. It is considered a Dark Gift, one of those things like using a killing curse, people just automatically assume anyone who does it is evil. They are wrong, about the parcelmouth part at least. But that doesn't stop them from assuming so. It is one of those kind of things that if it gets out to the general public your image goes from that of a hero to a potential villain. You won't be any less famous, but people would hate and fear you instead of liking or looking up to you. Do you understand?" 

Looking a touch frightened, he nodded, only to immediately disprove that understanding he'd just claimed to ask, "Why would they think talking to snakes is evil?" 

I chuckled. "Because the vast majority of people to have that gift WERE evil. Just like if every redhead you ever met tried to rob or kill your friends, you'd hate redheads. And, for a while, both the English and the Scots DID hate each other! Because they'd fought so many wars against each other that was the impression each culture had about the other. But the point is, this is one of those reactions that people get deep down in their guts where they don't do much thinking about it. First, they react with hate and fear, and only then do they try to find excuses for having that reaction in the first place. In your case they could well imagine you'd defeated Voldemort not to save anyone, as they feel now, but because you saw him as a rival. Which is ridiculous. You were one year old, more concerned about sucking your toes than conquest. But people are, sadly, rarely rational about these sorts of feelings, or very logical when thinking up excuses for them." 

I could see now that my discourse to Harry had soothed Tonks, which was as much a part of the purpose for giving it as to edify Harry, of course. 

Harry actually had the sense to ask a good question as he struggled to accept this. "So, who were those parcelmouths that everyone fears so?" 

I raised my head, gazing down on him fondly. "Salazar Slytherin, for one. His descendants all shared that gift with him, also, and the most recent example from that, and only remaining one actually, is Voldemort himself. You actually get your gift from him. When he tried to kill you, you not only turned his spell back on him, you stole some of his abilities. That is one of them. So even though you are not evil, the person you get the gift from is, and people aren't terribly happy about reminders of him. President Eisenhower may have contributed greatly to the defeat of Hitler, but it wouldn't have made anyone very happy if from then on he'd begun walking around in Hitler's uniform. Do your very best to avoid even the appearance of evil, and keep your trophies to yourself. I wouldn't even tell my friends about that one." 

"How would they even know?" Harry was shaking his head in lack of understanding. 

I favored him with a condescending smile. "When a parcelmouth speaks to a snake he hisses. Everyone around you could hear. To a speaker, it sounds just like his native language, and indeed most don't even know at first they aren't speaking normally. It takes some effort to distinguish snake language from their own, and if they aren't trying or don't know how to tell they miss the subtle differences. I would suggest you simply avoid talking to any snakes. It's not like they have terribly interesting conversations anyway." 

Tonks had now seen Harry's ignorance and confusion over this issue, so she did her job and slipped into 'big sister' mode, scooting over to where she could grab and pull him down next to her and hug him, stroking his hair. "Don't let it trouble you, Harry. I've got cousins who've got red hair. The rest of the family dyes it, so nobody has to know." 

She smiled, and I grinned too as it became plain that her joke got through to Harry and he seemed very much relieved by the levity. Good. 

"Speaking of hair," I broke in, now reminded of the subject. "I am reminded of my second point. I believe that Harry has another rare and special gift, one that you may share with him. Dora, is there any way you can test another person to see if they are a Metamorph?" 

She blinked at me several times. Then her hair changed color again and her nose lengthened. "Oh! Yes, but it's supposed to be called..." 

"A metamorphamagus. Yes, I know. However, adding that 'magus' suffix to a perfectly good and distinctive word like metamorph not only makes it too difficult and cumbersome to say ordinarily, but also seems the height of unnecessary, when you consider that no one without magic could do it." 

I smiled for her. 

She snorted. "Alright. Yes, I could do it, but mostly people just look for signs, like changing the color of your hair, or whatever." 

"And Harry has given those already." I favored her with a small bow to show I'd already thought of that. "For example, his aunt hated his hairstyle and did her best to shave it off more than once. It grew back overnight. Also, people speak of him having his father's unruly hair, but I know for a fact that James had to keep running his hands through it to tease it to stand up, yet nothing Harry does can make his lie down. Also, Harry? Have you had any haircuts from the school barber at Hogwarts?" 

He blinked twice in confusion. "There's a barber at Hogwarts?" 

I shared a knowing look with Tonks. 

"So," Dora asked, "You didn't get a haircut this year? How long is your hair, compared to how long it was when you got to school?" 

Harry shrugged dismissively. "About the same, I guess." 

Tonks was nodding. "You're a metamorph. In fact, the signs are pretty obvious. I just got a wild streak in my hair one day, but my parents noticed." 

I heaved a sigh. "Unfortunate, but Harry's former guardians were opposed to magic in all of its forms, and beat him for any perceived 'freakishness' on his part. So I don't feel any surprise they didn't cultivate this gift." 

Tonks' face set in a hard, determined, expression before she tried to put a cover on over it and turned to me, trying to shift the attention off of Harry. "So," she asked of me brightly. "How long does it take you to curl that mess of hair in the morning?" 

I opened my mouth to tell her exactly how long, then froze. I hadn't been curling my hair for weeks, ever since I got here, practically. In fact, I could only recall doing so that first morning when I'd only just arrived. After that I had been far too busy studying magic and accomplishing things to spend an hour each morning getting my appearance just right. 

I turned to look in a mirror. My predecessor had several of them about so one was always handy. I put my hands to my face, testing it, then touched my hair, confirming what I'd thought. 

Everything looked just right. 

So not only had I been skipping my personal makeover sessions for a solid two weeks, but I'd been missing those extra moments when normally I'd have had to be slipping out to touch up things in the middle of a day. I carried a pouch full of grooming tools on my person for just that purpose. 

But I looked fine, better than usual, actually. I had all of those tiny touches, demanding details and fussy refinements that even Lockhart skipped out on except for special occasions, as even for him they were too much effort to indulge in with any regularity. 

Seeing my shock, as I hadn't been concealing it, both of them looked at me with far more interest than before. "Do you curl your hair?" Harry asked. 

"I used to." I responded. Still exploring I touched one of those curls that took forever to get 'just so' and instead of ruining that look as per usual, it went and bounced back to 'perfect' right away. 

That curl was close to twenty minutes of work. Or it used to be. 

But... I hadn't had to do a 'beauty session' since that transfusion of Harry's blood. Okay, I guess that made it pretty obvious where the change had come from. 

Well, magical people were always on about the importance of blood. Perhaps now I had an inkling as to why, as I felt positive from Lockhart's experiences that he'd never had a touch of the metamorph power before. Yet Harry did, and now I did, and the only link I could see was that small transfusion. 

I turned back to face my companions, too surprised to school my expression to have any special meaning. "But these last two weeks or so I haven't had time. But everything looks perfect anyway. Look." I pulled a lock out straight and let it go. It rebounded right back to where it was. I smiled. "That once would have fallen limp without a touch of magic creams to hold it just so, and pulling it out of shape would have ruined the holding effect of those creams." 

I chuckled, moving to sit by them. "Well, I am now facing considerable savings on the beauty creams and cosmetics department. Whatever shall I do? Some of my favorite shops may go out of business without my support." 

They laughed, which was fine, but I'd been serious. My predecessor spent more on beauty treatments than I felt comfortable parting with for rent. 

Settling down beside them, I folded my hands in my lap and got serious. "Very well then. We, all three of us, may have that talent. I couldn't think of anything more welcome. Dora, we are all going to have to go out for a full set of photographs, maybe even a portrait or two, before we begin training." 

"Why?" Harry asked. 

I cocked my head in an 'it's so obvious' way. "Well, look at Dora. She has a bit of trouble staying with one face, so it seems. Also, her body is so fluid that she trips over her own limbs sometimes. But, to be useful as a disguise, we want to be able to shift seemlessly and effortlessly between forms, yet still be able to hold those firmly when we enter one. Thus, we want to not only be able to learn how to change, we must become experts on certain shapes so we can assume those quickly, yet keep them stable and do them the same way each time. And the very first shape we'll want to master after we learn how to change is our own. Thus, pictures and so on to help us get it right." 

Tonks looked quite surprised at my revelation. 

I put my arm around her reassuringly. "Anyone can be clumsy when their arms and their legs are a subtly different length each day. You see it in little kids all of the time. When they are growing up so fast their minds don't catch up with their body's changes, they trip and fall almost constantly. You may not even realize why it is happening that way. So, do you have any pictures of yourself before you learned to control the change?" 

She nodded. "Yes. My mother has been crazy about taking photos of me, since as early as I can remember." 

"Good." I patted her shoulder reassuringly. "Then you can not only help us to master our newfound metamorph abilities, you can practice being Dora at the same time. We'll each want to set up a few alternate faces and identities as well. As all three of us are metamorphs, it is best if we can each of us join in our disguises together. So we'd best pick matching identities." 

"What do you mean?" Tonks and Harry both asked. 

I waved to indicate Harry. "Well, let me step back a moment and say that Harry has spent most of his life wishing he was normal. Now, most of that may be due to his relatives abusing him for being 'abnormal'. And I am sure that somewhere down in his deepest feelings he got convinced that if only he was normal the abuse would stop and he'd be happy. That's something to deal with later, and I've got an idea or two that should help. I'll take a moment to say that, Harry, normal does not make people happy. Happiness comes only from relationships with people you love and respect. Power, fame and money do not make people happy, but neither does being normal. Most ordinary folks spend their lives wishing they were somehow special, like us, while most folks who have something that makes them special spend much of their time wishing they were normal. It is one of life's great ironies, and a lesson that everyone has to learn eventually is just to like and accept themselves as they are." I snorted in earnest amusement. "Then, one of the next great ironies, is that no sooner do you accept yourself for what you are, than you ought to immediately work to improve yourself. It's almost funny how things work out that way. But back to the topic at hand." 

I leaned forward and interlaced my fingers. "Now, say we want to go out in public without being recognized. We could throw on any old faces, and that would do for the short term. But people ask questions, just as part of daily interactions and meeting new people that we'd have to answer, and sooner or later we'd trip ourselves up by getting our stories wrong. That would reveal that we CAN disguise ourselves as metamorphs, and teach everyone to look for those signs that would reveal us if they want to find us. So that doesn't work for the long term, and so it is far easier to have one disguise that you use for doing the same thing over and over. That way we can get our stories straight, and won't be new people all of the time that those we deal with will feel that they will have to introduce themselves to." 

I yawned, surprising myself, and was shortly echoed by both Harry and Dora. "Well," I stood up, stretching, after realizing just how late it was. "We have an appointment to keep with Albus in the morning. Dora, you can stay here if you like. It would be a little cramped, Harry's already got the guestroom. But you can sleep in my study if you like. It's got a nice, wide couch in there I've often napped on myself. But you can also stay tonight with your family if you prefer. Our only stipulation is we will be needing to see you around eight in the morning. Once Albus delivers on the home he's promised us we'll expect you to be staying most of your nights with us, except on your days off, just so you can be here if Harry has night troubles or anything. Fair deal?" 

She nodded, also standing up and gathering in her papers. "I'll stay the night with my folks if that's alright." 

"Yes, it is. Just make sure to be here before the Headmaster comes to spirit us away. And speaking of him, did school get out today?" 

"No," Harry shook his head. "The Headmaster took me out a day early so he could have time to convince you in private. He said doing it this way, we'd avoid the crowds." 

I pursed my lips, considering. "Yes, he had a point there. And Dora?" 

She shrugged comfortably, at ease with us already when she'd been a bundle of nerves when she arrived. I was glad for that change. "You sent me a job offer, so I approached him for a chance to leave early for my interview. It doesn't make much difference, I didn't miss anything. The Hogwarts train leaves tomorrow. All I would've skipped out on were some goodbyes, and I made sure to make those early so I wouldn't miss out on this." 

I nodded, covering a second yawn. "Well, then we can probably expect him a short while after the train departs from Hogwarts. He may have things to clear up after, so call it an hour later. But we can spare you for the day. People don't graduate from school every day of their lives. Go and see your friends, as there are sure to be parties and celebrations and things of that sort. Will that be a problem?" 

Dora shook her head. "No." 

"Good." I confirmed. "Goodnight then. I'll show you out, and we can get you a set of keys made in the morning, after we are done with Albus." 

Nymphadora Tonks would go back to school and tell all of her friends the news about her new job, working for two VERY famous people, and that she'd been hired on the single recommendation of being hated by Snape. That story was so good, even without the Harry Potter angle, to get repeated by those friends to other friends, and so spread through the whole student population, who'd go on to share it with their parents, who'd tell their friends, and the day after the Hogwarts train everyone in the magical world would know. 

Faster than the speed of gossip was indeed a very high rate of travel. 

But Tonks was careful about not spreading anything we didn't want others to know about on her day off, or any other day for that matter, so had already begun in our long task of keeping secrets together. 

I awoke that eventful morning to the smell of breakfast being prepared. Throwing on a robe over my pajamas, a set of light clothes that wouldn't look terribly out of place if I had to go fleeing out into the streets due to an attack in the dead of night, I got my shower, spent a moment looking in the mirror over my now 'perfect by default' appearance, then went out to speak to Harry. 

He was almost pathetically eager to please, and had set a breakfast fit for four, most of which centered around my place setting. 

I gave the boy a hug. 

He actually got tears in his eyes, and held on desperately, so I lengthened out the hug by a decent margin before I released him. As I'd thought, even so he was reluctant to let go, so I gave him another quick squeeze to reassure him, then we parted to take our seats. 

"Harry," I spoke before I'd fully seated myself. "I want you to know that you, and your happiness, are important to me. You do not have to buy my approval with work. Now, that said, I am in favor of chores for children and think they teach a great deal. However, I also think that the Dursleys overworked you. So do not think that I will be having you do as much as they did. We can come up with a fair list of chores later. Agreed?" 

He smiled brightly, the happiest I'd ever seen him. 

That puzzled me for a moment, and after I'd said a prayer asking a blessing on the food I thought it over while we began serving ourselves, and passing more than a few dishes over to Harry's side of the breakfast table. 

Really, who had ever really given the kid any approval? Kids need that, it was like mental vitamins, in a way. There were certain ways they could not grow until they had some, and a long-term shortage could be, heck, would be, detrimental to their development. 

You couldn't pick a kid who'd suffered through less approval growing up. And, now that I thought about it, there wasn't much at school for him either. That fraud of a Potions teacher (Rowling herself had been quoted as saying that Snape does not teach Potions, he teaches how to deal with people like Snape) had abused him and so was an active negative, while I suspected that the rest of the staff was endeavoring to stay carefully neutral, lest they be accused of favoritism to the Boy Who Lived - a suspicion I felt warranted by the fact that Harry had not latched on to any of them like a barnacle and refused to let go, which he WOULD to any source of affection he could see! 

Actually... Blast! He'd treated Dumbledore that way, in spite of seeing him only once or twice a year. In my mind that confirmed a speculation that I'd once heard in another fanfic. "Take care to raise a kid in an environment without love, then if you show him a little affection he'll be your willing slave for life." 

Whether or not such was Rowling's intent, the speculation can be confirmed on every point. Harry did grow up in an environment without love, and he did show Dumbledore unwavering loyalty, even after the man was dead. 

What was scaring me was the possibility that Dumbledore might've arranged it that way on purpose. I'd read some very good arguments, going through point by point building a case that A) Dumbledore had a spy on Harry in the form of one Arabella Figg, B) said spy once admitted to Harry's face knowing how those Dursleys had felt about him, C) you can't call yourself much of a spy to know of that level of hatred and not go that one, tiny step further to find out about their actions. And D) the whole point of a spy is to discover information and pass it along to its master. 

Therefore, Albus had perfect knowledge of the abuse of the Dursleys. He could not have avoided being aware of that situation, by the information Rowling had already given us. 

Said case continues, in that E) The Dursleys were cowards, as proven by their moving Harry to the smallest bedroom when they felt that wizards might be watching the house. So their behavior could have been amended by putting even the slightest pressure on them. F) Dumbledore, as the head of the magical court system, could have brought such pressure to bear with ease. All culminating in G) The man had done nothing of the sort. 

As had been pointed out by Lionheart, Dudley was his mother's son. He had the blood of his mother in him, therefore he had the blood of Lily also. The only reason that Harry was forced to remain in that environment was to dwell in a home with his mother's blood. So all you had to do was declare the couple unfit parents and take BOTH children away to be raised by a decent family, and Harry would STILL have grown up dwelling with his mother's blood! 

And, when you come right down to it, the Dursleys spoiling of Dudley hadn't done that kid any more favors than their abuse of Harry had for him. Both kids were very badly messed up by being raised in that environment. 

No, that situation had been FUBAR (Fouled up beyond all recognition) and our beloved Headmaster had not only created it, he had actively sustained it by sending Harry back year after year. I suspected it ranged from possible to likely that Albus might have protected that situation, making certain that no one else got involved, as they might break it by removing Harry. 

So, all with the best intentions, Albus had been party to that abuse, and it was undeniable that he had later reaped the rewards of loyalty by being the first person to show Harry any kindness. 

It wasn't that I didn't like the man, or believe that Rowling had intended for him to be only the best, but what she had written left him, on analysis, highly suspect, as his behaviors just didn't seem to match his intentions. 

What JKR meant and what she wrote didn't match up very well on this, and some other, issues. 

Oh, well. 

We met up with Albus directly after breakfast. His body language was guarded and reserved around me, but then I had rather backed him into a corner with my demands about removing Snape... but I could quickly see that wasn't so much his problem (although it WAS a problem he had with me) as my having shown Harry some basic, elemental kindness, and gotten the boy attached to me. 

Ah! I could see. Now I was his rival for Harry's loyalties. No, he wouldn't like that a bit, would he? And I could see now where the crux of the Snape matter came into this issue. Through my having connected Snape's abusive behavior to Albus, in front of Harry, by pointing out the Headmaster's protection of that villain, I had cost Albus vital points with the boy. 

No, I could see how Dumbledore would be less than happy with me after that. 

So it was without much conversation between he and I as we set out to find and achieve the return of Slughorn. 

Our interview with the professor went depressingly similar to the books. I made no significant contribution to it, Harry carried the bulk of the man's conversion by simply asking innocent questions. 

Well enough. I was glad to have it done. 

One thing I did add to the occasion was, after a bit of praise and ingratiating myself properly once the man had been converted, was to confess to my own sub-par Potions skills, and on the strength of that humility, ask for and receive a copy of his memories for his last year teaching that subject. Every period including every year of students, plus a few side projects, although it cost me a bit more than the basket of candied pineapple I'd brought with us. 

However, it was priceless. One of the excuses I made to gain it was I wished to gain some understanding of his teaching skills in hopes of furthering my own. And I was rather new to the subject of teaching, at least from the end of an instructor. 

Well, flattery will get you places, and it got me there. He gave me memories I had to carry out in a bucket, but it was well worth every cost I'd paid for it. 

As we were about to depart and go our separate ways after this successful incident, I turned to Dumbledore, breaking our mutual silence to ask, "Have you had any success talking with Nicholas Flamel and his wife about donating memories for our history class?" 

Some of the old twinkle returned to his eyes. "Alas, no. However, I have lent some thought to your suggestion about my archiving some of my own past experiences. Perhaps those would do by themselves." 

I nodded. "Doubtless they will. But I was rather hoping for the other as well." 

Dumbledore frowned, looking around, then speaking softly, trying not to be overheard by Harry. "My friend Nicholas and I are having some difficulties. I am afraid he is still rather upset with me over a recent disagreement. We may have to wait before making our request again." 

I frowned. "Albus," I chided. "It's not like we have much time to convince him. If what you told Harry is true, then his stone is destroyed and they will not be around for much longer. Nicholas and his wife are several times as old as you are, and their pasts cover that much longer a time frame. This presents us with a problem, as this is a chance we will never see again. Once they die, those years are lost to us. Is there any chance you can get me in to where I might speak to them?" I flashed him a brilliantly charming smile. "I have been known to be convincing. And if his disagreement is with you, then perhaps another envoy can convince him to do this for the future of the school." 

He nodded, saying, "You are right. I will try. Expect an opportunity later in the week," before taking his leave of us. 

Taking Harry by the hand, we went through a floo connection to our current apartment, and I gave him some tips for proper floo travel along the way. 

No sooner had we arrived then I got accosted by an owl. Accepting its letter, and wondering why it hadn't gotten dropped in the fan mail stack with the others, I opened it to find, to my astonishment, that it was from Remus Lupin, turning me down on my offer for an assistant teaching slot! 

The letter said that he was going to devote his time in the coming year to assisting his friend Sirius in his recovery. 

Well, my plans just got altered. 

"Come along, Harry!" I called, "We are going to be making a quick stop by St. Mungos, the magical hospital, to look in on your father's best friends." 

He came running. 

OoOoO   
Author's Notes: 

I love it when the text just flows, like it has been doing for this. Everything seems all right with the word when I can disappear into a haze of writing bliss and be carried away by my own story. 

And, it has the plus side that I can share this joy with others! 


	5. Chapter 5

My Gilded Life   
Chapter Five 

by Skysaber   
based on a challenge forwarded by Lionheart 

OoOoO 

I had forgotten (shameful, as our mutual shopping trip was only the day before) just what an effect it had upon wizarding society when two of its most famous figures went gadding about together in public. We had to keep a good head of steam on just to avoid getting bogged down in crowds as we made our entrance to St. Mungos. 

The hospital staff practically fell over themselves to permit us entry when I swept before the desk and proclaimed that we were there to pay a visit to Harry's Godfather. 

Remus was already there. 

Sirius was a mess. Better physically than he had been in the films, after all, here he hadn't had to swim the better part of a small sea, and was granted new clothes, baths, good food and a shave upon his arrival rather than staying as a fugitive. 

But his eyes... No, those were those of a haunted man. However, they came alight upon seeing Harry. 

Only the two men were there in the room when we arrived, and they did not either like or trust me nor welcome me being there. But, it was obvious they were delighted in seeing Harry. 

I felt a sudden wave of caution strike me as I'd entered, perceiving through their body language that these were two desperate men, feeling abused by the system (and indeed, Sirius was most foully abused by the Ministry and its lackeys, while I could hardly say Remus had enjoyed his treatment either) and they were pranksters and rule-breakers from their youth onward. I saw, in a moment, that these men would feel no compunction at all against stealing Harry and making a desperate escape with him. 

Inwardly, I sighed. Outwardly, I didn't dare to. I hated to get caught in this mess, as I liked both these men. Putting a hand on Harry's shoulder to stop him from entering further, I paused in the doorway, staring at the two Marauders. It was confrontation time, and I really hated that, as I both liked and respected both these men. 

"Okay, let's get right to the guts of it," I proclaimed to them. "You don't like the way the Ministry has treated either of you, and I don't blame you. I think you are good men, cruelly used by our wizarding government. You especially don't like the fact that I am Harry's guardian right now, when both of you feel you owe it to James and Lily to take care of him. Mr. Black, they made you his godfather with the full expectation of you taking him in should they die. But that didn't happen. It should have. I disagree with Dumbledore about the priorities of Harry's treatment. Albus explained to me his purpose is to have Harry staying in a home where dwells the blood of his mother, in order to sustain some ancient protection based on his mother's love. Dumbledore tells me I have it, and that is why he presented to me the boy, and a stack of already filed paperwork putting me as his guardian. He as good as stole Harry from you, and I don't blame you for being upset. But we must get one thing clear: Now that I AM Harry's guardian, I am going to do the job that I've been given. I am going to do it as well as I know how. If by my life OR death, I can protect him, I will!" 

Oh, and only part of that was because, if I didn't, this whole world was toast. 

A minor consideration at best. 

I scanned them with diamond sharp eyes, daring them to make objection, but I had well and truly surprised them both by my frontal attack on simmering issues. Suddenly I dropped the confrontational act and smiled. "However, I feel that in order to have complete development as a young man, Harry needs to know his father's best friends. I want you to be his friends as well. Dumbledore tried to keep you both separate from him. I don't see any point in that, only harm. Harry needs to know who his parents were, and it would be best to hear from those who knew them well. I do not fit into that category, but you do. Remus, I invited you to be my teaching assistant in large part because it would give you a perfect opportunity to spend most of this year at school near Harry. So I invite you again to consider it. Sirius..." I gave him a grin. "Every boy needs a dog. What's better, if he leaves the owl at home he can take you as his animal for the year. I am a known quantity. If anyone tries to do Harry harm it would be automatic for them to consider how to get by me. But guards they DON'T know about! That's the key. And better yet you can be his friends, and Harry is sore in need of them. I'll give you the summer to consider it. And I invite you both to be frequent guests to our home in any case." 

I gave Harry a small shove forward into the room, smiling all the while. 

We spent a pleasant ten minutes together before I left Harry with the pair, feeling they were no longer in danger of kidnapping him. They were only somewhat at ease with me, those hurts I'd mentioned were still too raw, so I left in order that they could get on to the real stories, the ones containing pertinent details they didn't want to share with any nonmembers of the in club, ie, fellow Marauders or their heirs. 

However, before making my departure, I saw to it that, while leaning over to adjust a buckle on my shoes, I bumped Sirius and whispered that, if they had any clues they wanted to drop on Harry about how to begin mastering an animagus transformation, I'd promise not to notice in any official capacity. 

Then I made my exit. 

Taking one or two other security measures to insure they didn't try to run away with him, just in case they were better liars than I gave them credit for, I began wondering what to do with my time while I gave them some privacy, when I recalled one of my other errands. 

It had no particular place on my 'to do' list, as I did not consider it urgent. It was just a 'fit this in somewhere, because it would be nice if it worked' sort of idea. 

But! I happened to be on scene with some time on my hands, so now was a good time. 

Asking a nurse, I got directed to the room of Frank and Alice Longbottom, in the long term spell damaged ward. There was something that I wanted to try, and this looked like a good time to experiment, confident of two things: One, was that I could hardly do any harm, and Two, I might do a great deal of good. 

I was astonished at the SIZE of the long-term spell damaged ward. It seemed twice the size of the rest of the hospital, at least, and I labored under a dark suspicion that I was seeing only a small part of it. On asking my nurse for an explanation, she replied that they still had many patients from the last reign of terror. Frank and Alice were not alone, they were merely the last in a long string of torture victims. There were literally thousands of witches and wizards in their condition at St. Mungos, some who'd been as young as six years old when driven mad by Crucio spells. 

That spell had been used on younger children, but none younger than six had survived those experiences to end up here. Still, the remnants of the victims of a twenty year campaign of torture, among other things, had found a more or less permanent home there. 

There were no spells left to cancel, and so the hospital staff felt helpless to treat them, so those comatose bodies got warehoused in the vain hopes of them getting better on their own, somehow. 

The wizarding world truly didn't think things through. There was an appalling accuracy to JKR's statement that wizards couldn't do logic to save their lives. 

My jaw firmed, and my proposed experiment jumped up a few notches on my priority list. 

The original Lockhart had one skill. He'd been gifted with memory charms. On entering the rooms of Frank and Alice, and ensuring I was alone, I used my best charms to determine their mental state, something a good Obliviator like Lockhart had to be proficient at. After all, the memories you are erasing are not always recent, and the goal of a Ministry Obliviator is to erase just enough to escape muggle attention. It would be awfully suspicious to leave a bunch of mental vegetable around. People would notice. 

There was almost no activity in their minds. I could not read thoughts, that was a different and much scarcer skill called Legilimency. Still, I could take a look at the book of someone's mind, even if the cover remained closed to me, and on inspecting closely enough I could see a small swirl, like a blender at the bottom still moving, slowly for now but enough to keep shredding any of the mind's attempts to reorder and heal itself. 

That 'whirling blender' I felt sure was the experience that drove them insane in the first place, their brutal torture by the LeStranges. 

It took just a second to erase that event, and that event alone, from their minds. A second diagnostic showed that the source of the churning was gone, but that their minds were still largely blank and empty, still caught in something of the current left behind by the former constant churning. 

Well, given enough time I was certain that things would settle down for both of them and they'd be able to rebuild their minds, gradually regaining sanity and ability. St. Mungo's policy of waiting for them to get better should actually work in their cases now. 

However, I was in a hurry, and of no mind to wait. 

I was angry at Moldyshorts for depriving so many people of their lives. Death was one thing, but permanent insanity was almost worse, and here he had inflicted it, laughing, on countless people, and their innocent children. 

Well, I rolled up my sleeves and got to work. 

Those memory charms I had used to reinforce my own past recollections to catch up on my schoolwork, I now used on them, bringing back ordinary days and carefree times, their marriage to each other and the birth of their son. 

Already I could see how, using those as an anchor, or a seed if you will, for the mind to restart itself and begin ordinary operation, the couple began to recover. For the first time in I knew not how long (actually, on thinking that I did the math and pegged it at about eleven years now) they began to stir as churned up memories began to grow back into structures, fitting into place and forming back into the minds of the people they had once been. 

It was still too early to tell the extent of the recovery they would be making, but I already counted this a success. I could feel in my bones that they would be alright. 

I was in the next room without hardly thinking about it, doing the same to another couple in their condition, then another, and another, achieving the same results each time. 

I was caught up in some sort of madness. I was hardly aware of the fallout of my actions, hardly caring, only feeling this urge to rush through this as fast as possible. I heard a scream from far behind me, and the crashing of plates as they got dropped. I'd later learn that was the reaction of an orderly on finding Frank stumbling out of his room to ask what he was doing there, and how long had it been. 

I was not in a calculating frame of mind. Filled with righteous anger at the treatment of these people and the ignorance of the magical world that had not enough rationality to even TRY and cure them, I rushed from room to room, finding what victims of torture I could discover and curing them almost in a rush to escape my own abhorrence of that practice. 

It was not long before nurses, then Healers, caught up to me, but I was in no frame of mind to stop and explain. If they'd tried to stop me I might even have tried to fight them. However, they didn't. They'd encountered a trail of people getting better where none had ever recovered before, and simply followed that trail to its source. 

They did not try to stop me. They did, in fact, start to help me. Some of the patients I'd missed they maneuvered before me. Others they brought out of obscure corners and placed onto beds in my path. I passed by anyone who wasn't a torture victim, having no idea how to cure any but the malady that had so upset me, until I came upon a girl who was somewhere in her mid twenties, and who was not only a victim of Cruciatus torture, but had also been subject to severing curses and was missing both hands and legs. 

It was too much. My mind rebelled. I couldn't stand it. 

So, recalling as I did muggle theories as to reconstructive surgery, and knowing far better than I did before a small amount of medical magic, I put an Engorging Charm on her upper arms. Then with quick, neat cutting curses I divided some of this extra skin and flesh, and from it reassembled both of her hands, ordering tersely for a nurse to bring her blood replenishing potions and enough Skele-grow to restore those missing bones. 

Professional healers took over from me as I moved on. Inspired by my acts they did what minor transfigurations and techniques they could and set to rights all of the little errors I'd made, certainly more than a few, I am sorry to say. But at the end of the day that girl would have working hands. At my insistence they'd also go back at some later date and rebuild her lost legs. 

The new tissue would take some time to stabilize, based as it was on an Engorging Charm, which could be canceled. However, given sufficient time the body could go through and replace all of that tissue as part of its normal function, and then the replacements would have grown as sturdy as the rest. 

I would soon be credited with a medical breakthrough when all I'd done was borrow an idea from muggle science. Wizards simply had the spells to do it properly, that's all. But limb loss would never again be a problem in the magical world. 

I would actually be credited with two breakthroughs that day. One, was an effective treatment for over exposure to the Cruciatus, and the other using spells to reconstruct lost limbs. Both of these would be hailed as greater than any other medical advance in known memory. 

Both of them I'd based on muggle ideas, who'd actually put thought into what they did. Although, I did have to agree when some began cynically pointing out that this was a far better advance than Albus 'discovering' one of the uses of dragon's blood was as an oven cleaner. 

Yah, and you could use a flamethrower to clean ovens, too. The point? 

A few hours later I collapsed, exhausted. Only then did my sense of drive leave me. But there had been enough Mediwitches and Healers who'd followed me around, witnessing my performance, that they carried on in my stead. By mid morning, when I awakened to the taste of Pepper-Up Potion, nine tenths of the long term spell damaged ward was expected to be released in hours, and the various department heads of the Ministry, plus Fudge himself, had crowded into what was a very nice room where I found myself lying, and were almost competing with themselves over who got to congratulate me more. 

As brown-nosers, suck ups, sycophants and flunkies they knew their place well and were eager to fill it. I'd be getting an Order of Merlin, First Class, out of this at the very least, if not more than one. 

A very contrite Padfoot and Moony rejoined me later, explaining that they had already snuck out of the hospital with Harry, intending to go out on the run, when they'd heard of what I'd been doing. 

Frank and Alice Longbottom had been friends of theirs, too. And they felt they owed me one, good enough to give me a chance, at least. And, if I was still offering, they'd love to accept that invitation to visit Harry often. 

I agreed. 

Skipping out on Ministry workers who no doubt could have eaten up the rest of my day, if not all of the following week, telling me how great I am, I made my escape from the hospital and moved with Harry to intercept the Hogwarts train, which ought to be arriving any moment now. 

Floo was such a useful thing! I really had to learn to apparate, but that was a comparatively new skill for magical transportation, and none of Lockhart's aged victims so far had been masters of it. So floo it was. We arrived at the station in time to see a depressed Hermione just leave it with her parents along in tow, showing obvious concern for her. 

I darted over to make an intercept, grabbing her arm, then leaning over to put my hands on my knees and puffing, still exhausted from my work earlier, I said, "Hold there!" laughing with a grin, even as I panted. Shooting her a smile in between great heaving breaths, I asked her, "Aren't you going to say hello to Harry?" 

"Harry!!" 

Having caught sight of the boy behind me, Hermione launched herself at him in a tremendous hug, and in a quick monologue to her parents, described how she'd been so depressed not to see him, especially since having heard about his abuse at home, and wanting to tell him about their having given their permission to her to invite him to stay at their home for a week or two. 

All of this caught Harry in a rush, and he hastened to explain that he had a new guardian now, and I seemed to be alright. 

I chuckled, having caught my breath by the time this little revelation was done. "Thank you for that assessment, Harry. But I was the one to request that Miss Granger ask permission to take you in for a couple of weeks. That was long before I became your guardian. I was certain this whole issue would take longer to settle, actually. But I find I myself could use a vacation, else the Ministry will kill me with kindness, burying me under a host of awards." 

I caught sight of Nymphadora in the crowds, and motioned her over while the others considered that. "Dora, are you done with your goodbyes and things?" 

She nodded, so I clustered the group together. "Okay, this is what I propose we all do. I think everyone here needs some time off. I'll pay for everything. So what I suggest is that we go find the Granger's car, then drive it to a hotel while Dora makes a swift run to our house to pick up next years school books. Yes, Hermione we already bought your copies to save time. You may pay us back if you wish, otherwise you can consider them an early birthday present. Your choice. But then, having those, we meet at the hotel, and I show you how we could be spending the best summer of our lives. Okay?" 

Everyone was agreeable, so we split up to carry out the plan as advertised. 

Behind us, unnoticed (I cannot be aware of everything) Frank and Alice Longbottom had escaped from their minders at the hospital, and made a very tearful and touching reunion with their son as he came off the train. It was quite an epic moment for all involved as heartfelt exchanges of hugs and joy and tears of gladness were displayed on all sides. 

Nor was Neville quite alone in this singular form of happiness, as recovered patients began to escape from overworked hospital staff and made their reunions to loved ones and family all across the British Isles. 

It was an event that stood in grave danger of becoming Lockhart Day, and being celebrated for years to come. 

Presently unaware of this rather momentous shift, I proceeded with the Granger family to their car, where belated introductions were made away from the crowds. 

I was Gilderoy Lockhart, and was going to be Hermione's Defense Against the Dark Arts professor at school the next year. The bushy haired one gave a startled jump upon hearing the news, a favor I returned with a warm smile. 

Her parents were, in contradiction of fan convention, NOT Dan and Emma, but rather Ted and Miranda Granger, and, waiting for us in the car, was a younger sister to Hermione by the name of Moria. 

Miranda, Hermione and Moria all being Shakespeare derived names, owing to a devoted grandfather who had started this as a family tradition. 

Now, I'd been somewhat curious about this, as early on Rowling had claimed in an interview or other official release that Hermione had a younger sister, and then later on changed her mind. I'd been a bit perplexed as to which way that might go. But, on having been introduced to the young lady, I felt a terrible fear and apprehension grab hold of my heart. 

What if Rowling were correct - BOTH times!? 

Say, just for the sake of argument, that Hermione did have a younger sister. Seeing as how I'd just been introduced to her, this was a fact I could hardly deny. However, for her later to NOT have a sister could also be true... if said sister were to die. 

There was a thing called 'child mortality' for a reason. People died, even young ones, quite often of natural causes. It could be something so ordinary as a sickness or a car accident that caused it. 

Or a suicide. Those happened with appalling frequency nowadays. And with an elder sister who was an accomplished witch, but not having any access to magic of her own (as we never did see said sister enter Hogwarts)... yes, I could see a disturbed and jealous young teen ending her own life over such a sentiment. Such things had happened before. And the outpouring of grief over such an event could be mind-blowing. 

So that could contribute greatly to the change we all saw in Hermione in the later two books. A death in the family can often change a person, more so when the tragic event came at the victim's own hand. But either way, with Harry as stressed as he was by events already, Hermione had a good chance of not mentioning such a thing for fear of burdening him further. Thus, since those books were largely written from Harry's perspective, we could hardly know if she had chosen to keep it a secret from him. 

And, such a thing could shatter family bonds if they were weak enough (and Hermione DID spend most of each year at school, with a considerable portion of her summers also spent among magical folks, a terrible amount of neglect of her muggle family), thus leading to what Hermione had done to her parents that had seemed so very unbelievable and unlike her at the time. 

I began to feel a terrible, awful responsibility, as it became clear to me that there was so much I both wanted and needed to do, including saving this little lady's life, that I could hardly afford to spare the time to do it all. 

Where would one even start preventing an event when you had no idea how it would even happen? Or if? Or when? 

Since saving Harry and defeating our resident Dark Idiot MUST be my highest priorities, I could hardly say I could be certain to spare enough time to pick up any clues as the uncertain, yet horridly possible, event drew near. 

And yet... by the previous line of logic it seemed clear to me that if I could not prevent this sad event, however it occurred, I could not be sure of saving our bushy haired genius from becoming that awful person at the end of the books who had prompted many fans to say "Who is this person, and what has she done with the real Hermione?" As many of Rowling's later depictions of her main female character jarred gratingly on the nerves of those who'd liked her in the first parts of the series. 

Brrr! And I'd been feeling so invincible a moment ago, too. 

Tumbling into the car, and magically widening the back seat (as I had acquired a few tricks on those trips down memory lane, despite feeling I'd need a road map in the future to keep all of those new lanes straight), we arrived shortly at a small hotel, collected Tonks from her errand (she could apparate, and I resolved to get her to teach us), and once we had gathered in a small crowd concealed by the hedges just outside of the lobby, I took out one of my Time Turners, put its chain around everyone's neck, and span us back a week. 

Gesturing toward the parking lot, I began to grandly explain what had just happened. "Ted, Miranda, Moria and Hermione Granger, Harry and Dora, you will perceive, if you look to the parking lot, the absence of the Granger's car. It is not there, or rather I should say that it is not there yet. It will be in one week's time." I gave in to the urge to twinkle my eyes at them. "You see, this handy little device is a somewhat rare magical object known as a Time Turner - and I find it of particular use in fitting in extra lessons. However, as the Granger family adults inform me they can only afford to take a couple of weeks off each summer for a family holiday, I thought I should treat you all to another. You, at this moment, are back one week from where we were a second ago. Ted and Miranda are probably at their dental practice dealing with patients. Harry and Hermione are still at school, and I'd wager Moria is also. So, for that matter, is Dora. But! We are also here. So, since we are all already filling out our responsibilities nicely, that means we have an extra week of holiday to spend however we like. And I would be most happy to cover all the costs for this myself, so the past Grangers do not get surprised by any unexpected charges on their credit cards." 

Eyebrows raised and mouths opened. 

I beamed over them a wide grin, then took the entire party over a ferry to France, where we all discussed where we wanted to go, then dipped through an international floo connection to their chosen spot for sun - Italy. 

So, no sooner did we arrive and emerge from the international floo than I sent off a message immediately to one of my fans native to Italy, a frequent pen pal, in fact, inquiring as to whether he would mind if I dropped by for a visit, say mid-afternoon-ish, and brought along some friends? 

Then we hit the beaches. 

Since Hermione's parents had brought no luggage, and her school uniforms were hardly suitable for either her or her sister out in and among the muggle public, I got everyone a small wardrobe, showing them all a trick by getting fairly cheap stuff from a Goodwill store and then transfiguring it into good clothes of whatever design they wanted. 

Everyone was impressed by that trick. But, as I explained, the smaller the change the longer it was going to last, and this was plenty small enough to last a week, easily, even at my low level of ability. 

And, it had the added benefit that when the spell expired they would still be wearing clothes, no sudden nakedness as everything you're wearing suddenly reverts back into handkerchiefs, or anything like that. The clothes would be ugly and worn, but that would be the extent of the embarrassment. And with that eventual end in mind, we could use them hard in the meantime. 

That was one of those things Rowling had never explored or explained. For if you could create anything via transfiguration and conjuration, why was there even a magical economy? Who would BUY anything if, for a few wand flicks, you could make it? 

Well, on arriving here, I'd learned that transfigurations and conjurations were temporary, and that you could not create any magical properties that way. So, if you transfigure a carrot into a mandrake for a potion, your potion is going to fail as it has none of the magic that's supposed to be in a mandrake. And if you ate a pig that had been transfigured out of a desk, you'd find yourself with a lump of wood in your gut at some point. 

But for disposables, like vacation clothes, hey! Knock yourself out. 

I looked at Harry and nodded, reaching under my shirt to pull out a necklace, on which hung a locket. Inside of that locket was a portrait, which swung open on a little concealed catch operated by the portrait itself (something like the Fat Lady on the door to Gryffindor Tower) to reveal a trunk, shrunk down to minuscule size, and inside of that trunk was all of my camping gear. 

Harry took his out as well and we began to set things up on an open space overlooking the beach. 

Now, as part of that shopping expedition I'd seen to it that we'd both loaded up on magical camping gear, including magic tents fully loaded with options and measuring about a dozen rooms each on three floors. They were top of the line models, and I'd even gotten us a discount, being frugal at heart in spite of presently being rich in body. 

Now the reason for all of this was simple. Call me paranoid, but I felt it wise to both have full survival gear for potential 'live as a fugitive' emergencies that may crop up in our futures. And magic made it easy to carry enough gear so we could be including all of the comforts of home on the road. The trunk was to hold everything, and was enchanted so that all of our camping gear would magically return to it on a given command. The locket was so we could carry our trunks with us at all times, and could cause the trunk to magically return to it the same way as the trunk could call the rest of our camping gear. I fully intended to never take my locket off. 

So even if we were caught in the tub or otherwise indisposed, once we'd fled whatever danger came upon us we could still reequip ourselves by calling on supplies stored in the trunk in the locket. So even if we'd been caught and attacked in our tents with our gear spread out, we could (once we'd escaped) use our lockets to call the trunks, which would in turn be able to recover all the rest of our camping equipment. Perishable supplies, like food and spare clothes, were the only part of this system that would have to be recharged periodically, unless something broke, that is. 

Which, given the dangers of this environment, was sadly likely. Stray spells or other harmful measures could easily destroy any element of this. But, to avoid notice, seeing as how this WAS a mobile hideout as much as anything, and hopefully escape combat altogether, I'd seen to it that our tents, while they could not be invisible, could be the next best thing, as from the outside they appeared as simple trees. We could even change what type of trees the exteriors were, to match whatever forest we elected to hide out in. 

And they were real enough on the outside for a muggle to lean up against one and not feel a thing out of the ordinary. But, place your hand on a certain knot, and say a password that we could reset as we desired, and you were in. Our balconies were concealed among the leaves, and our windows looked out likewise, clear from the inside and yet innocuous tree bits on the outside. 

We could literally camp out in the middle of a muggle city with no one the wiser. No, the tent crafter had been quite amazed when I'd requested these options. I was amazed when he was able to do it, and paid him extra so I could get his permission to erase our tent specifics from his mind. After all, the value of this was in concealment, and if every tent in the wizarding world suddenly started having these options people would know what to look for. 

The lockets, trunks, and tents were all ordered separately from different vendors, so as to conceal the true function of the whole system as much as possible. 

And finally, both lockets were enchanted so as to stay clean and avoid notice as much as possible. So, in theory at least, even if captured by the Ministry or Death Eaters (at times it doesn't matter which), we'd still have our full survival gear hidden around our necks despite occupying the depths of Azkaban or a cell in Malfoy's basement. As we each had a spare wand hidden in and among our supplies, getting out should be much less of a problem. 

I'd have to call myself a fool if, knowing of the dangers ahead of time, I did not prepare for them. 

Setting up our tents to change into our swimwear, we let the Granger family use Harry's, while our 'family' I guess you could say of Harry, Tonks and I used mine. 

Delayed for a few moments by the necessity of showing the Granger family around the inside of the magical tent they would be using, and explaining how to use the various magical odds and ends I did not believe they would be familiar with, I skipped off to my own to get changed, only to halt at the door to the master chambers I had pegged as my own. 

"Who goesss there?" I heard a voice in the room, and instantly went on the alert. 

"I'll have you know this is my room, so I am the only one who has any right to be here. State your business and be gone." I spoke back to the unseen voice, checking around the chamber while I sidled over to get a scarf I could wave around to check for invisible persons. 

I'd no sooner moved around to grab one than I saw a small snake in a cage, hidden just around the side of my bed, where I could not see it from the door. 

There came snickering from behind me. Turning myself around, somewhat dumbfounded, I saw Harry and Dora there, the latter with her arm casually hung around the shoulders of the former as if they truly were brother and sister. Both were regarding me in very proud modes, and Harry spoke to me. "I knew you had to be a parcelmouth, just like me. How else could you have known how to tell me all of those things you did about how it works?" 

Tonks was nodding, though she'd heard only hissing, she knew what gift that hissing meant. "You knew about it in a way that said you'd done it, but told us you wouldn't even tell your friends if you had it." 

"So you snuck a snake into my room, then waited around to see if I spoke to it?" I was amazed at their ingenuity. I mean, I knew I shouldn't be, Harry was exactly that clever early on, before the series beat it out of him. But I'd never pictured those leaps of understanding being applied to unmask me! 

For that matter, how on Earth did I become a parcelmouth myself? Oh, right. That transfusion again. Well, hopefully that should be the end of it. Then again, who could tell? Rowling did not exactly develop any of Harry's powers. He might be a bunch of other things her books never explored. 

Still, son of an animagus, I could at least hold out hope that he'd inherited that ability, if it was an inherited one and not simply trained, as I'd rather like to explore those options myself. 

Swinging the scarf around my neck, I gave the pair a smile as I spread my hands in surrender. "Alright, you caught me. Well done, both of you, and I'd like to congratulate you on working together on this so well. For your prize, you may choose which restaurant you want to have supper at. But I do hope you will both hold my secret as precious to you as Harry's is." 

They nodded, but Harry bit his lip. "But, I was wondering... you said that only the descendants of Slytherin could do it. So how do you..?" 

I gave a very sad shrug. "A magical accident, Harry. Much like yours. I'll give you the details some other time, alright?" Like, when I figured out a story to use. The truth might be a bit dicy, as I didn't want to tell him why I'd been drawing his blood in the first place, because then I'd be found explaining why I'd killed the Dursleys. 

And it was one of those things that didn't explain easily. 

Sigh. 'Keep conscience clear, then never fear' was such a perfect motto. Why hadn't I let the magical police handle them? 

Oh, right. Because as the head of the magical court system, Albus could have perverted justice once again, like he had with Sirius, to get Harry back in their care regardless of past abuses. The man seemed to have no known limit to his clout when he felt like using it. 

And such a course could only have ended in the destruction of Harry. 

On the other hand, I was to find that my sharing of this secret, dark gift with him built a bond of trust between us that was not likely to falter. He knew that he could trust me on certain matters, and for the very first time in his life felt that he could relate to someone, as we were both famous, both had a secret gift that we shared and could destroy us, and were building a friendship on other lines as well. 

No, we were already well on our way to being very strong allies of the other. 

"Can't you even give us a hint?" Harry asked as I tried to move everyone out of my room so I could change. 

I sighed. Okay, showtime. "Alright, Harry. Like you, I killed an enemy to gain this ability. I wasn't born with it." Opening my eyes, I gave them a friendly gaze. "The trouble is, I don't know which one it was. There have been so many, and I didn't know at the time that any of them spoke parceltongue, so it could have been any of a large number of enemies I've defeated. It didn't even have to be a living opponent, as it could have been one of the vampires or other undead I've destroyed. So the details are lost to me." 

Actually, there was a nugget of truth to that. While I might strongly suspect that it came from the transfusion and my killing off the Dursleys, I didn't know for sure. And I had, by now, defeated more enemies than just them. 

I continued on in the same vein. "I don't know how or why it happens this way sometimes, so I could not tell you for certain. All I do know is that you and I are the only ones to have become parcelmouths this way that I know of. If there are more, I've never heard of them." 

Harry gazed up at me. "But, since we keep this a secret, others might also?" 

I nodded. "They might. But it would be far too risky to check. And, if they did, there ought to be family lines of them appearing, other than just old Salazar's. What I suspect," I propounded a new theory I'd just thought of as I stood up taller, "Is that once you'd destroyed Voldemort, the gift didn't want to just up and die as the last of Salazar's line perished, so it became in a way contagious, and you and I caught it. That could explain why others who fought his family didn't bear those gifts away, as we've done, and also says that you and I are likely the only two to have caught it." 

He nodded, satisfied. 

"Why wouldn't you want to tell us, if that's all you knew?" Tonks cocked her head, regarding me oddly. 

I sighed, closing my eyes. "Dora, I am a storyteller. Books are how I've made all of my money, and I find it embarrassing when I've got to say 'I don't know' about something, particularly about an amazing event like that one." 

She nodded, satisfied, and she and Harry both seemed to eagerly absorb this little nugget of information about me. 

"We'll keep the snake in my room for another few days, if you don't mind, and Harry and I can practice discerning parceltongue from our native one. That way we are both less likely to be caught off guard by such traps in the future. But I still advise not owning any snakes long-term." 

They both agreed, then things went on. 

OoOoO   
Author's Notes:   
The plot bunnies for this are so strong they keep me up to wee hours sometimes, as every time I go to bed and close my eyes I start reading to myself bits I hadn't written yet, hadn't thought of yet, and so have to get up to go write them or else they'd be lost. This happens something on the order of two or three times a night. 

So I hope that someone out there who is getting enough sleep enjoys what I am offering to you. 


	6. Chapter 6

My Gilded Life   
Chapter Six 

by Skysaber   
based on a challenge forwarded by Lionheart 

OoOoO 

"Ow! My eyes! My eyes!" 

"What happened?" Miranda Granger ran up to her husband, who was helping me stagger up to our tents whilst I was clutching my eyes, as if that could block out the pain. 

The children, who had all been getting ready for a day on the beach, looked over and saw us stumbling in. 

"Snape! In a Speedo!" I cried out in agony. 

All of the kids looked sick, except for Moria, who didn't know what was going on. 

"And, and... that's not the worst of it!" I blathered, still clutching my eyes. "Deputy Minister Umbridge, the most repulsive toad-woman you ever saw, in... AHH! I can't say it!" 

"I tricked him into going with me to check out a topless beach." Ted, looking a trifle ill himself, told his wife. "And there was... yah, I didn't know their names, but it was sickening." 

"OH! The PAIN!!" I clawed at my face. 

Miranda looked at her husband in surprise, hardly knowing how to take this situation. "Could they really be that bad?" 

Ted shrugged. "Well, they did clear the beach around them. It seemed no one wanted to go too near." 

"What's he doing here? Isn't this still a week before school ends? It should still be in session." Hermione scrunched up her nose to ask the question. 

I cried from where I lay whimpering, crumpled up in a head on the floor, unable to answer. 

After being dumped on my bed by concerned adults, I listened as the rest of the group went off to enjoy the sun, sand and surf. 

A moment later, seeking to distract myself, I rolled out of bed and went to fetch my case of pensieve memories. It was undiminished from before I'd begun to absorb them, as each time I removed a memory I also replaced it with the newer version, once I'd done converting it over in my own mind, as those were still useful things to have on hand to review. 

I then noted Slughorn's bucket sitting in the corner. 

I pulled them out to have a look, and on reviewing those memories, found that Slughorn had pulled a switch on us and done Harry a grand favor. What I had requested was an overview of one teaching year, a year in which a professor naturally taught all seven grades of classes, thinking that would be easier for him to organize. What I got was parts of seven years in succession, each in turn following a class of students that included one Lily Evans, one James Potter, the rest of the Marauders, and the distasteful bully Severus Snape. 

It was their school history, at least as far as Potions classes went. 

At once this gave me an idea! I had been thinking of an 'if I can arrange it, it would be nice' priority of approaching Professor McGonagall once again to ask her the same thing that I'd requested from Slughorn, namely enough teaching memories to give me a good start on such essential disciplines as managing a class, presenting topics in an interesting fashion so as to engage attention, and of course how to appropriately administer school discipline. 

And, if I'd just happened to fill in gaps in my Transfiguration skills, which was still one of my weakest subjects, so much the better. 

Well, now I had to bump that up my priority list, and ask if she could tailor that presentation to be the same as Slughorn's marvelous gift, to whit, a chronological history of Harry's parents, as seen in those interactions she had with them, particularly in classes. 

It would heal many of that lads wounds to be able to see them thus, since he could not be with them alive. 

This also had the excellent side effect that I could expect a full commission of the pair's school history to include enough lessons to catch me up on that subject I remained appallingly weak on. 

For that matter, I made a note to begin buttering up Professor Flitwick so I could make an attempt to wheedle the same out of him. Successful or not, I just wouldn't feel right unless I'd made a try. And, if I could ferret out others among the teachers that had taught that fabulous group, so much the better. I made a note, in particular, to ask Hagrid and Dumbledore about perhaps donating their experiences with those most influential students. 

Anything we could obtain would fill in gaps in Harry's otherwise quite limited knowledge. And, I could hardly say no to any knowledge I might gain, either. 

For that matter, now that I had seen how special were those memories that Slughorn had donated, I could not in good conscience, simply put them inside of my head, as I'd been intending. Harry had to see them, and if I put them in me I'd no sooner do so than I'd be altering and misremembering them to star myself, and that would hardly do the poor boy the same amount of good. 

And it would also tip my hand as to a number of other things. 

So I was caught in a quandary. Harry had to see them, and not just see them once, he'd want to watch them again and again from time to time as he found convenient or he needed those images refreshed. But mere watching of them didn't give me any skills, so I'd want to pour them inside of my head at some point - but I couldn't do that and still leave them around for Harry. 

Well, I felt sure there was a magical solution to this difficulty. I didn't know it, but I did have alot of money and knew people who did and could solve some magical problems. I sent off a letter to a pensieve-crafter (a far less well known specialty than a wand-crafter, but probably greater in skill), asking if there was not some way to duplicate stored memories, or perhaps to share. 

That done, I tabled the topic for now and went on with other duties. 

Seeing the memories of Potions classes, even in overview, had recalled to my mind one of my priorities of this trip. I still did not know how the Ministry tracked underage magic, however I felt sure that wand use was involved somehow. That meant that non-wand forms of magic should be available to practice, to whit, Potions, and perhaps animagus transformation. 

The potions we could probably afford to put off a while while I worked out the details on how to share out those memories donated by Slughorn. But I had a somewhat related project I could start on right away. 

Harry was a mess. 

Not much of one, it's true, compared to the mess he'd eventually be, but there was still alot of work to be done getting him to where he ought to be. So, when the troupe rolled in later collect me to go with them on their search for lunch, I had a plan to spring on them. 

"Hermione," I spoke to her as the group was getting changed into restaurant acceptable clothes from their now wet and sandy beach wear. We were all on a first name basis by this point, I'd insisted, so she was Hermione to me just as I was Gilderoy to her and all the rest of the children. "I've been thinking. I have a charm that can aid one in recalling forgotten memories, and I was wondering about using that to help Harry. He did live with his parents for fifteen months, after all, and helping him to recall those times could give him a much greater picture of who they were and what they were like." 

Harry had frozen by this point, right in the act of stuffing on shoes he'd paused to stare at me like I'd grown two heads and was using them to sing soprano duets. But Hermione squealed and flung herself at him to hug him. 

"However," I cautioned, also pausing in the act of putting on my own shoes. "That is only part of the equation. He needs to heal, and there is substantial abuse and neglect from his previous guardians to consider. So, I was planning to propose a modified strategy to what I used to aid those torture patients at St. Mungos to recover their wits and senses." 

This, quite naturally, led to a very long tangent as to what I'd done, and why, and how it worked, before we could continue on with the topic at hand. 

"So, you are going to make him forget those awful Dursleys?!" Hermione chirped, jumping around in happiness, before she turned to him and glowed in triumph. "Oh! I think that's a great idea!" 

"If he agrees, and then only partially," I amended. "You have to consider, this was not one event. It took up most of his life. Forgetting all of that, well... he'd be a vegetable, and we can't have that. However..." I tapped my lip in thought. "Yes, there might be a way." 

"What? What is it?" The eager genius bounced all over me, happy and excited over the prospect of healing her best friend. The rest of her family watched this exchange in varying degrees of interest as they waited for us. 

I drew a long breath and shrugged, springing forth in a golden smile. "Well, if I had a little assistance from you, I'm sure everything would go over perfectly. Do you want to give it a try?" 

She nodded strongly. "Anything!" 

"Very well, then." I stood up, having donned my shoes for our lunch trip. "We will do a bit of what the muggles find so effective in surgery, and replace the blood, or in this case memories, we take away. If I could call on you to be a donor - you'd lose nothing, dear, I'd only make copies, then we could go very slowly to make sure nothing goes wrong, and point by point erase the bad and replace with new. I'd only be removing the worst of what he had, the beatings and so forth. We could easily afford to leave all of the productive and boring bits, like working in the garden, cooking and so on." 

I was nodding while stroking my chin. "Indeed, if this works we could really let Harry have a 'normal' childhood in most respects, through leaving what was good of his, and adding some implanted memories. It really would be our best hope to remove the harm of that abuse he'd suffered." 

I smiled again to the stunned family. "You know, if we did this properly, I could even make a few edits. They'd have to be careful and precise, but with a touch of artistry, which I must say with all modesty I do have, and giving back to you some of those alterations and changes, Hermione, you could have been Harry's best friend since pre-school." 

Hermione started to bounce around the tent, shrieking in wordless glee and smiling wide, clapping her hands all the while. 

I'd never seen her so excited. By anything. 

I spread my hands to her parents. "It is a bit like a dream. Time won't have changed. But if they both recall the same classes, the same people, and being friends... well, it won't have been real, but it will feel like it." 

Ted was staring at me, stone-faced. "That scares the bejeezus out of me." But the man got quickly overruled by his wife, who thought it was a wonderful idea and was eager to help. She said it was for Harry, but I saw in there a substantial concern for her near-friendless and lonely daughters as well. 

Moria, as it turned out, was very much like her sister in all ways, including her bookish habits and lack of ability in making friends. Idolizing her older sister may have had the effect. But she could just as easily have gotten it from their mother, who (while a touch more outgoing) was much the same. 

So Ted got sent to get take-out as going out to lunch got canceled and the whole party sat down to convene a planning session as for what was to be done. I was even surprised by their eagerness, and soon the Granger girls had Harry fully roped in to helping out. 

They quickly blew all of my small-scale, measured plans out of the water. leaping forward in eagerness to fix everything, not just a bit. 

As far as memories to work with, Hermione had offered her childhood ones, and since she did I'd be willing (if Harry was, and he was) to provide her the edited version of his they approved of - one completely without the Dursleys. It would be understandably short, but what was left of Harry's childhood once you'd eliminated the moments starring ugly relatives was a heck of a lot of cleaning, gardening and cooking, and all of those were useful skills. 

Actually, the kid should be a downright genius at both Potions and Herbology once he had the Dursley associated trauma pulled out of his skull, as those skills were all closely related to ones he'd mastered beautifully as his chores. So, once he no longer suffered from abuse-originating distaste of those two subjects, they should come quite naturally to him. 

I pointed out you could successfully use those practical domestic skills as a base to which you could later add Potions and Herbology masteries. And if then on top of that we add Hermione's excellent muggle grades, which would include such things as math and history, that was already about half of the Hogwarts subjects they could reasonably expect to excel on. 

And why stop with their childhoods? I was perfectly comfortable with having both youngsters learn about their first Hogwarts year through the other's eyes, including Moria and her mother in on that as well. Hermione could use the flying experience while Harry and Moria could use everything else, while the mother could see through their eyes those experiences they'd had and thus understand her children better. 

Hey, if Hermione, with not yet seven years of education, could erase the minds of her parents and send them to live in Australia as different people, I, who was considerably more of an artist and specialist in this field than she, could include Harry as a brother in the Granger family - particularly with their willing cooperation, offering both help and suggestions. 

Suggestions which had quickly overwhelmed my own small scale plans. But, once they'd asked if I could handle the levels of detail and change they were proposing; and since I didn't feel like lying I admitted I could, which they took to naturally mean that I would. 

So my cooperation simply got assumed as they took their plans and ran, going wild with all of the wonderful things they would be doing. 

For my part, it was a bit like being a movie director. I could cut and splice using scenes that had already been filmed, make alterations or add an actor who hadn't been there before. But I could not, as Miranda Granger suggested, make her a doctor where none among us had that information available to be spliced in. Although I'd be 'editing in place', changing all of those memories they'd chosen while they were still in their heads, as a means of concealing my own trick of memory stealing. 

A complete makeover and combined life quickly got selected by the Granger team, one where Harry was simply one of their kids, left on their doorstep instead of the Dursleys. I could include all of those lessons that he'd learned in the Dursley household, namely how to cook and clean and garden like a professional (all useful life skills), and, once that subject got raised, even share them out, so Miranda and her daughters recalled those experiences all working the kitchen, house and garden together, and so have those same skills themselves. 

But, once what little good that could be salvaged from the Dursley moments had all been saved, it was going to be a very Granger life all told. 

Taking Hermione's childhood memories as a template we could edit those for Harry's use. He would be forgetting the Dursley family entirely (small loss, I felt) and becoming a twin to Hermione Granger in most meaningful ways. He would go to her schools, read all of the same books, have the same lack of friends (this was something I would have changed, but had no material for splicing new parts in to cover those holes) and grow up with her family. 

Then I'd make those same changes over to them so they'd recall them too. 

Yes. I was certain that by doing this we could erase the lingering Dursley harm from Harry's mind and leave him substantially stronger than he'd ever been before. Also, the Grangers seemed determined to jump in to it as well. 

Still, my jaw dropped a little they were all so eager to do this to themselves. 

Some of those splices would be easy, others hard, and countless minor alterations had to be made along the way so that Harry and Hermione would have the closely paralleling lives of brother and sister rather than each one trying to inhabit the same skin. What this meant was I had to put in a spot for his toothbrush, rather than both using hers, two beds in the same room (there was, unfortunately, no other way to do it but to have them share a bedroom, as this WAS her childhood I was duplicating, and they didn't have a spare room in the house) with two dressers and a split closet, but I felt it all well within my abilities. Because, you see, I WAS rather gifted with memory charms. And, for the most part, this was a simple copy and paste job. 

There were complications, but nothing I could not handle. 

I could even get creative, like adding Dudley back in as a neighborhood bully, and one they'd had to run from on occasion before he'd moved away last summer. That gave them vital evasion skills that could be of use later, and a touch of talent at track and field, should they ever use it. 

Bolstering Harry's first year of life memories of his parents gave us extra material for splicing in, adding family traditions, events, holidays and useful habits to the Granger scrapbook they all decided to share. 

Once the basic outline had been decided and the specifics worked out for each person we were ready to try it. Although I had to obtain by rush delivery a much larger pensieve so we could hold copies of their original pasts should something go wrong with the changes. 

We could restore from backup this way if anything went wrong. And, should Harry ever choose to review his past, he could do it without losing all that he was now getting. Just watching it shouldn't give the same emotional trauma. 

I also, quite secretly, saved a copy of the new Granger past for myself, as Harry's flying experience filled a gap I still had in my own abilities, and all of the cooking and cleaning and so on were actually superior to my own skills in those departments. Plus, and I had to feel a little guilty admitting this, if I could recall Hermione's first year of Hogwarts, I'd be at least three times as far along in my own training to make up for Lockhart's regrettable lack of attention paid to subjects the first time. 

I had each person write a lengthy letter, addressed to themselves, about who they were before this change, and what things had been altered. 

Ted, who came back with the lunches, absolutely refused to try this, and felt that we were all mad. I left it to them to decide, and after arguing with his wife Ted declared they could do it if they liked. The Granger girls, from their mother to youngest daughter, were all in favor of participating, and having received permission not just from them, but from their father, to try it, we all sat down to begin the changes. 

Dora watched to make sure that nothing could interrupt, as once started this was not going to be easily halted. Due to the extent of the alterations they requested, I'd had to abandon my plans to do this one tiny piece at a time, as it was far better with this big a change to get it all done in one mass lump. Otherwise their minds would be trying to reconcile different bits and would corrupt both portions. 

This way, all in one sum, while more intense was actually safer. 

We started with Harry, and I began my wand work on his mind. Then, having done what we'd intended to do, woke him and allowed all of the girls to question him. Satisfied by the results, and the change was remarkably satisfactory, I took the daughters aside one by one and repeated this operation, finishing off with the mother after checking each person at the conclusion of her session. 

All went well. 

Finding everything stable and of good report, we adjourned to lunch. 

I quickly discovered that, as with any such major project, there were unseen problems that arose rather quickly. I was Harry's guardian. Not ten minutes before I had been his salvation out of an awful situation, and while we did not know each other well as yet, still we'd liked and respected one another. 

Harry was now one of the Grangers. Although he'd never dropped the Potter name he now felt like one of that family, and they were treating him like one. He felt like he had a strong and friendly, positive relationship with them, and the mother and daughters were treating him the same way in turn. 

And, well, if one person acts like a friend to the other, and the other does too, that pretty much makes them friends, or in this case mostly family. 

Ted and I quickly joined each other in feeling left out by the new dynamic. I, being more flexible about such things, quickly adopted the role of 'rich uncle' and started charming my way back into their lives. Ted, on the other hand, received a few kindly reproofs from his wife over the next week about being so cold to Harry, as Harry earnestly tried to please him and gain some of his approval and affection, to which he felt he was a natural heir. 

I could see danger lurking there, but this was working out more or less exactly as the group had requested. I was on the losing side of the exchange, but could put up with it. I'd lost a great deal of influence over Harry, but the kid was substantially healthier and happier, not to mention smarter as his 'Hermione side' had helped him develop his natural intelligence much better. 

The group was, as we discovered over the near future, better in nearly every measurable way. Hermione and Moria were more confident and outgoing with their 'brother' there watching over them, and the circle of sibling friends had expanded by one, so there was more interaction and options available. While Harry grew into his older brother responsibilities with ease, taking over some portion of his dutiful and loyal nature and applying that to his responsibilities as eldest boy and older sibling. But in return the girls gave him their love and with that love... he bloomed. 

Harry started to mature into a true leader right before our eyes. 

If I wasn't stuck out shivering in the cold by this I'd say it was all to the good. But, seeing as the cost was all, or mostly, paid by me, I could live with it. Plus they were all so happy together at this point I could hardly do anything about it without feeling like an utter cad. 

Ted grinned and bore it patiently when his wife chided him to be nicer to their adopted son (and what was up with Ted lately?). I was now more or less an extra to the Expanded Granger Family but Dora was able to work herself in quite well once I'd expanded her duties to include all of the Granger children. 

It was the only way she could do her job anymore. As it was, Harry could not accept her help unless it was general across the family. So Tonks became like an assistant to Miranda, in that she started to help out with all the kids. 

And, she fell into that with such natural enthusiasm and skill that I began to envy her the relationship she soon began to share with them. But again, we got a far better Harry out of the bargain (and, for that matter, a better and stronger Hermione as well), so I swallowed my pains and made no complaint. 

If I could only arrange for them to have 'the mother's blood' I could stand back from this with a wide grin on my face and call it a job well done. Already I was a mere teacher along on what was very much a family vacation, and despite my charm I began to feel as though I were intruding. 

We went together on a tour of the old Italian villa where lived the fan I had posted a letter to earlier that day, and that helped, as I was able to play guide along with my long term pen pal, and by this feel somewhat bought back in to the social equation. 

I had actually mailed this man because he worked at the Italian Ministry, and at one point I took him aside briefly to probe for details as to the process by which underage magic use gets discovered. He gave me a few clues, but nothing concrete, and I left feeling that I was failing rather often lately. 

Needing to refresh my batteries with some form of success, I took my leave of the family briefly when they went out shopping and began to play with Point Me charms. 

Minerva, or excuse me, Minnie had told me about that sub captain smuggling magical supplies to England during the Second World War, and I had a touch of unresolved curiosity about that. She'd said that shipment included supplies of a nature desperately needed during the war, including bundles of potions supplies, bales of dragon hide, and precious invisibility cloaks. 

Well, I could use some of that myself, to sell if nothing else, as I'd run up quite a bill buying what I'd felt to be essential equipment, my side of the extra special camping gear and so on, things that I had not billed to Albus because they were for my own use, even though Harry got his own copies of we did. 

So, a simple Point Me to the body of the captain she'd named. 

The point went out to sea. 

Intrigued, I went by floo a couple hundred miles up the coast and did the point again. Then, having accosted a vendor to show me where I was on a recently purchased map, then confirming that from an officer, I got an old sailor to help me mark my position on a nautical map, then mark the bearing on it. 

I didn't know this stuff, but I was social, and so could talk to people who did. That was how I did a lot of covering up for my weaknesses. 

Returning quickly to my group in Italy, I went down to the docks and got the same help from another experienced sailor, leaving me with a position out at sea triangulated where those two lines crossed. 

I was in a shop buying Gillyweed the next moment. 

It was exciting, and it felt good to be doing something useful and productive after what felt like a string of failures. Oh, I knew getting Harry integrated with the Grangers was actually a stunning success, it was my being left out of it that hurt so much. But I wasn't about to let my feelings get in the way of his growth and recovery, so, on a personal level, it was a loss. 

And I wanted to be succeeding again. It kept me charged, and if I got bogged down too much by defeat I'd move so slowly about my tasks that I'd never accomplish anything. Or at least, not enough to keep all of us alive. 

Which, call me selfish, but I felt keeping all of us alive was important. 

So, it was out to sea with me. I packed up my tent (the others were all using Harry's now) and hired a boat to take me to a set of coordinates. They did so with a fair amount of speed, and I went down to dive for treasure. 

Using Point Me charms it was too easy, but by this time I was excited to be moving and doing again, so the lack of sporting difficulty did nothing to phase me. My spirits flew high as I discovered the wreck, done to death by strafing from planes while caught on the surface, probably done while trying to run fast while under cover of night. 

A lot of subs got sunk that way. 

It told the story of a daring captain who took a risk and paid for it, a far more common story than Hollywood would have us believe. The man took a gamble and lost, hoping to evade and yet ultimately he'd paid when another person had guessed his movements (or just stumbled across him, they did a fair amount of random patrolling). 

There were thousands of stories like it, told and untold in the annals of war. In a game of Cat and Mouse, sometimes you are the cat, others the mouse. 

And sometimes, the most dangerous times, you were both. 

The sub was at a good depth. Starting on the surface it had sunk slowly as far as such things go, and ended up shallow, where microscopic life had turned it into a reef in short order, but it was still recognizably a sub. 

Still, the magic of gillyweed seemed to account for depth as easily as breath as I swam easily down, seeing just fine despite the low light, and there were times, like this one, I had to bless Rowling's lack of detail. Yes, a mouthful of this herb and you swam better than most fishes, all because she found it convenient! 

Well, I wasn't arguing about that now. I found it useful to the extreme. 

The sub looked surprisingly intact. Hull plates punctured and gaps torn open as water rushed inside, but all in all the damage was small enough I had to use a hatch to get inside. 

The next half hour was spent removing bodies from within. Some trapped deep inside when it started to go down, others hit by the bullets that sunk her (the worst of that being in the conning tower, where it looked like near the full bridge crew had gotten riddled), or crushed by falling objects when the sub listed to one side, but overall not too many. Escape hatches were open, and life boats missing, so it looked like many had survived her fall into the deep. 

I had learned the Levicorpus spell, as one of those more frequently used in the series and I'd had a time once before when I would've like to have it. Now it came in handy as I removed the bodies from their posts, or wherever they'd died, and transferred them outside. Only then did I go exploring. 

The hold was stuffed with magical paraphernalia, all secured down hard with belts and charms, now defunct. But the crates and chests they had all been packed in to conceal them from dock inspectors seemed to be mostly intact, and the waterproof charms laid down a few decades before were still holding. 

Excellent. 

Now, on a direct hit from a torpedo or depth charge most everything there would have shattered, and the charms failed at once. But that wasn't what had happened. The sinking was almost gentle contrasted with some possible options. They could have refloated it if they'd had the time and equipment. 

Some chests had burst and the contents reduced to unidentifiable sludge, others had lost their protective charms to the years and I'd hate to say what had probably happened to what was inside them, but overall much of what I saw was intact, and thus recoverable. 

So, I set about recovering it. I could check on the contents later. Only after I'd freed the first chest did I realize my folly. I had magical storage available to me, but not enough to store this amount, and certainly not something that I could open underwater! 

Chagrined, I put the chest back in its place and resecured the straps. I didn't even know enough to have the ability to renew the waterproof charms! 

I was a sorry mess of a wizard, wasn't I? 

Newly chastened, I left the sub and returned to my boat, which I had take me back to shore. Whereupon I immediately set up my tent and dove into my chest, searching for a certain vial of memories, one of a seagoing witch who'd used a ton of useful enchantments and marine type spells. It was one of Lockhart's early yet unconverted attempts at books, and quite a find. I set about absorbing them at once. 

The next day I'd not only be back at the submarine, I'd know how to repair it and salvage contents I'd felt unsalvageable. That sea witch had been a truly remarkable woman, and I felt privileged to be heir of her spells and watery expertise. Her having died old and childless, I was probably the only one who knew them to this extent as well. 

So, on consideration, if Voldemort ever did come back, hiding underwater was now not looking to be so bad of an option. 

I could be comfortable down here. 

Needing neither gillyweed nor a lift from a boat to take me there, I took a little time to explore the sub. Doing so I'd found the reason the crew had quit military service and turned to smuggling: chests upon chests of gold. They'd gotten paid well for something, and since it'd been wizards they'd dealt with it was gold they'd been paid in. A fortune, even by wizarding standards. 

Heck, this sub captain had to be wealthier than I was before he went down. And, to judge by the jewel-topped cane I'd found in his cabin, as arrogant as any Malfoy as well. 

Actually, judging by the lack of decay on the wood of that implement, I could be mistaken. It was certainly magical not to have rotted clear through at this depth, and I'd wear a pink tutu or a kick me sign if it had a spell on it I needed to use. I'd prefer not to, of course, but I knew myself well enough to say I'd do whatever I had to do when it came right down to it. 

And the Lockhart side of me found the cane adorably fashionable. 

Disgusting. 

Well, I buried the bodies in a cemetery on an island nearby, then sent a letter on to the Japanese embassy in Italy saying they'd been identified, and asking what they wanted done with them, shipped back to their families or whatever it was they did in these cases. 

Then, leaving enough money to make sure the bodies were cared for, I took the sub and ran, figuring I could park it somewhere and fix it up in my spare time. But even so, the lady witch whose skills I'd inherited had needed neither oars nor sails to move a ship, so I didn't need an engine, and it was easier to let the boat haul the cargo than use methods I didn't yet have. So I just sat on the prow like a figurehead and prepared to point where I wanted it to go. 

Only to discover that I had no idea where to move it. 

Okay, this was turning out to be a bad week for me as far as avoiding feelings of being pathetic. 

I left the sub pretty much where I had found it and returned to shore to join the Grangers for dinner. I actually lucked out by doing so. Ted was down in a hotel bar, and Harry actually approached me for a teacher/student thing as he'd been failing to get help from his 'dad' on the problem. 

"What... what would you think of a person who... killed another person?" Harry asked of me delicately, acting shy, and I perceived that he didn't think I knew about the Quirrel incident. 

His sisters and mother were looking on in concern, as apparently their attempts to offer him comfort on this issue had failed, as his mind was still in tumult, troubled over a deed no one had ever helped him deal with before. 

I found it a good sign that he was dealing with issues and not repressing, as before. That meant he was less messed up than he was before, and he was seeking to resolve those bits that remained. Good signs all around. Also, that he felt secure enough to ask me, but then, I WAS to be his Defense teacher, so this was my job, I supposed. 

I crouched down to speak on a level to him, putting my arms around to hold him by his sides, smiling as I spoke. "The simple answer was you did right to kill that man. I heard about the event with Quirrel, and he was assisting the spirit of Voldemort, who had murdered and tortured thousands. So no one thinks you did any wrong in stopping Quirrel from bringing that man back, even though you had to kill him to do it. In fact, they celebrate your heroism for doing so very brave and difficult a thing." 

I pulled up a seat and planted myself on it before resuming eye contact. "So you have the simple form. Here is the long one, as there are a few rules you need to know about the topic should you ever find yourself in such a situation again. God, who gave us life, also provided rules for when to take it away. The first is, obviously, 'Thou Shalt Not Kill' and covers most situations. However, like most rules, there are exceptions. The one you need to know is 'Inasmuch as ye are not guilty of the first offense, neither the second, Thou Shalt Not Permit Thy Blood To Be Shed By Thine Enemies.' We are taught to defend our lives, and our families, even unto bloodshed. In practical terminology, this means that if you are at war, it is okay to kill people on the other side. It also means it's okay to defend yourself if attacked, either in war or out of one." 

I sighed, looking down, then up, and biting my lower lip. "Ideally, you want to take care to restrict yourself to needful targets, even in cases of war. You can compare it to a surgeon cutting off someone's leg. Doing it because he thinks it's fun is wrong, but doing it because the leg is gangrenous or torn apart by shrapnel and must be removed to save the person's life is correct. You always want to do the least harm to reach your goals, always, and then you want to double check and make certain you have righteous goals, too." 

More firmly now, I met him in the eyes. "It all comes down to this: God judges us by the intents of our hearts. The idea that 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions' is Catholic doctrine, and is not correct. You won't find it anywhere in the scriptures. They made it up long after they stopped claiming any revelation from God. So, when a question arises, 'when is it appropriate to kill someone', ask yourself this question first, 'Would you shed their blood if they would leave you alone?'" 

I considered his face carefully. He was soaking this up. "Most of the time the answer to that is 'No.' If they'd leave you alone, you'd be happy to leave them alone. In those cases, when you bore them no ill will yet they approach and start a conflict, defend yourself and feel no wrong. But try to hold it to whatever level they'd been trying to do to you. So if a bully punches you, don't go shooting a deadly curse back at him. On the other hand, if a gang starts to corner you, well, people die from gang attacks and you have no clue beforehand where or if they are going to stop, so fire away. It would be too late to judge their intentions later. So use whatever force you feel is needful. Similarly, if a person attacks your sister, or family, or any other person you are protecting, defend that person as you would yourself." 

I drilled him with a far more concerned gaze. "But if the answer is ever 'Yes, I hate them and would hunt them down to hurt them even if they left me alone' then your emotions are involved. Step back and consider the issue carefully, because you have stepped onto mirky ground. If you are prepared to kill just because you are upset: Don't, because you'd be in the wrong. If, however, you are upset because of a terrible crime they'd committed..." 

I took in a large breath, and then let out a sigh, breaking eye contact. "We are also instructed to kill as punishment for certain crimes. Rape is among them, and that has in past times been interpreted to cover acts of extreme brutality, torture among them. But most of the time it is better to leave those to the law to prosecute, as they frown on vigilantes of any sort. So best to avoid trouble with them and not go there in the first place. Report it and let them take care of everything." 

"But," I gave a careful shrug. "There are also times when the law is corrupt and controlled by those who pervert justice for their own ends. Once again, that is mirky ground, and far better to avoid going there when or if you can. But if it ever comes to pass that the law is criminal and one protected by it approaches you to do violence, well, the rule there is: 'shoot, shovel, and shut up.' And it's not something any of us ever want to do, so avoid going there if possible. Ultimately, the rule on killing has always been decided by one dividing line, as posed by the question 'Am I trying to destroy, or prevent destruction?' If you are trying to preserve life and prevent destruction by destroying a source of destruction, fire away. If not: Don't." 

I patted him on both shoulders, then released him and stood up, finishing off my speech looking down on him fondly. "Again, we hope it never comes up that you have to enter a deadly situation a second time. But you did right to kill Professor Quirrel. You meant him no harm until he first attacked you. Also, the wizarding world is still at war against Voldemort, so you are okay on that point too. He was a needful target, a criminal several times over and a known, even infamous, destroyer of the lives of others. So when you stopped him you saved many lives, thus preventing further destruction." 

I smiled, warm and accepting. "In short, you did good, kid." 

OoOoO   
Author's Notes: 

First I'd like to thank everyone for their reviews. They charge me up. 

But why do so many people tell me not to make my character too powerful? He will be EXACTLY as powerful as I need him to be for the story, no more, no less. And to do that I've got to account for his desire for growth and balance that with the opposition he will be facing, which often comes in many forms. 

Believe me, I can handle powerful characters, as I know how to challenge them. It's really very simple. Rather than give them too great a weight to lift, you give them too many balls to juggle. 

On the other hand, I am really excited by some of your suggestions. 

Timeline for anyone who is interested- 

1) I arrived, post-interview for the DADA position, and spent a day hunting down death eaters and related scum. 

2) Next morning I stole a time turner and went back one week. 

3) Spent that week practicing basic magic skills in the Room of Requirement, took a moment out during that to steal the Philosopher's Stone. 

4) Spent another week in the privacy of my penthouse accumulating skills by absorbing memories of the original Lockhart's victims. 

5) I spent a day during which I became Harry's guardian, went shopping and interviewed with Tonks. 

6) Next day school officially ended, we had our visit with Slughorn, dropped by the magical hospital, collected Hermione's family, and together went back another week in time (the week that I had spent in my room acquiring new skills via memories). 

7) I performed, with permission, therapeutic memory work to correct the harm done Harry by his childhood. And, with the Granger family, began spending the extra week of holiday we'd gotten. 


	7. Chapter 7

My Gilded Life   
Chapter Seven 

by Skysaber   
based on a challenge forwarded by Lionheart 

OoOoO 

Last I checked I was an AB positive, and Harry was an A. The Granger family were all strong Bs, some positive, some negative. So, so much for the 'blood of the mother' transfusion I'd been hoping to give them. They weren't compatible types to either of us. 

And I was starting to feel a little ghoulish, running around blood typing people in their sleep like this. 

Still, I was doubly bummed that I couldn't just hand over the raising of Harry to those who had begun doing such a good job of it. They were family, and he needed them, but they didn't need me sticking around. 

Except Harry did, and I rather suspected something Deus Ex Machina was in the wings prepared to keep me around whether I wanted to or not. Rowling's world did tend to work that way, if her books were any indication. It can't all have been Dumbledore's fault. 

Well, actually, it could. But that could still prevail in this case, as, if he found out that Harry wasn't with me I could so easily see him stepping in to destroy the bonding he and the Grangers had begun to achieve, yank him out of their collective bosoms and return Harry to me. 

Oh, and that would make so many people happy. NOT! 

Well, it wasn't like that had ever stopped him before. 

I had left Harry's post-Hogwarts first year memories alone. So nothing of his meeting Sirius and Remus, or his talks or shopping with me had been lost. He merely chose to focus on those new Granger memories, perhaps to the exclusion of all else. 

For the present, anyway. 

It was an interesting study in one sense, as neither his, nor the Grangers', personalities had been changed at all in spite of how extreme was the work they'd requested on their memories. They were still very much the people they'd been before, except... well, I didn't want to call it an exception, but on receiving the new pasts, those who'd gotten them had discovered they had new tools in their mental arsenals, and those who'd had problems in their personalities before now found new ways of dealing with those, solving them. 

So, Harry and the the two girls in particular were focusing hard on the parts of their new pasts that gave them abilities to solve pre-memory charm problems. Things like affection and acceptance for Harry, and whatever mental nutrient girls got by having brothers the girls were working hard to draw out of Harry (who, since he got affection and acceptance in return, was happy to oblige). 

So, it wasn't that their memories had changed who they were at all, it was merely the fact that those new pasts provided tools they hadn't had before, and they were using those to resolve problems they'd had before. 

In short, they were changing their own personalities, using this as a base only as far as it provided them tools, and they sought the personal growth that such change brought, as it covered holes they'd suffered under, having been previously underdeveloped in this or that. 

Aside from being purely mental, it was no different than artists scrambling to get their proper share of new paints that had been delivered, of colors they hadn't had access to before yet needed to complete their pictures. Or like a group starved for citrus getting ahold of a box full of oranges. 

They were so very eager to use those new parts because they filled in gaps they'd had before, or provided them with 'mental vitamins' they'd been short on. Thus, they were chowing down like starving animals on the new supply of mental food, only out of need to compensate for a previous lack. 

Albus would be SOO popular with this little group if he broke them up! 

Still, I had developed one hope during the night of nocturnal blood typing. Hermione was a minus, while her sister was a plus. Since they were both Bs, that meant Hermione's blood was compatible with her younger sister. 

Well, as I couldn't count on an Act of God to deliver Lily's blood protection to the Granger family, perhaps I could ask for something smaller, and Neville's story had come to mind. The poor little kid had been tormented by his uncle, who'd been desperate to get him to show forth any hint of magic, even to the point of dangling, then dropping, him out of an upper story window. 

Well, why? Kids were either magic or they weren't right? 

Except, perhaps, if and I say IF, magic was a potential that didn't always get activated. Maybe something has to get it started, to spark it off, so to speak. 

This could be, in many cases, the story of a gifted musician who never studied music. That talent simply lies dormant for most of their lives. 

I didn't know any good metaphors for it, but if Neville's uncle came so close to inflicting serious harm or injury to a child, then it was important to them. And, if they felt it was that important, they had a reason. It didn't mean the reason was correct, or even accurate. But they felt they had one. 

So, on that thought, an idea had occurred to me as to how I might possibly stave off a catastrophe for the Granger family that I wasn't even sure was going to happen - the loss of Moria. 

Should such a thing ever happen, it didn't occur in the books. So it was off-screen, and so probably in the muggle world. Most diseases the muggles had the wizards knew how to cure, a car crash was a scandalous way for a witch to die, and if she was magical too there wouldn't be much to be jealous over, certainly no reason to kill herself, so... 

Virtually all of the ways Moria might have perished should be short-circuited if I could get her into Hogwarts. There, she'd only be facing mundane and ordinary sources of extinction like Death Eater attacks or basilisk strikes, the sort of stuff I'd be preventing anyway. 

So the question remained, how to do it? And the answer seemed to be, get her to use magic somehow. If that gift slumbered in her somewhere, get her to use it. The wizarding world view on this seemed to be much the same as lighting a lamp. It didn't matter how much fuel you had in there, or how clean your brass or how fresh your wick, it meant nothing until you'd ignited it. 

Fair means or foul seemed appropriate if Neville's uncle was a good example. He most certainly wasn't, and I'd never endanger a child's life that way, but I could use his behavior as a measure of desperation as to how important this was to certain magical families. 

You know what? I could do something sneaky about it all, but I wasn't going to. I'd just get up in the morning and explain the importance of accidental magic, then let them decide what to do about that. I couldn't imagine them NOT wanting Moria to enter Hogwarts, after all. And even if they didn't, that was their choice, now wasn't it? 

I went to sleep with a happy conscience. 

Morning came, and while Tonks was monopolizing the shower I had a good chance to explain my concern, and so brought the matter to the attention of the Grangers. They were shocked and horrified that she might not get a Hogwarts letter, none of them more than Moria, although Hermione came in a close second. 

No one wanted her not to get her letter, and yet as I explained it, if she had not performed some magic before her eleventh birthday, I did not think that she could expect one. 

This thought instantly put the whole family into a tizzy. For Moria, though she was nearly two years younger than Hermione, had a birthday a few months earlier in the year. So if she would be attending at all it would be this year, and her birthday was only a few weeks away. 

Moria tried, several times, using borrowed wands to cast any spell she knew of had heard of through Hermione's memories. Hermione was flipping open spell books and Harry stepped in and gave coaching, and it was looking to be a big mess before I decided to offer a 'jump-start' option, by explaining the whole 'wizards equate blood with power' thing, and offering that one of the vampires I had fought once gloated that drinking out of wizards made him more powerful, so perhaps if one of us were to try a small infusion into Moria... 

Everyone wanted to be blood typed that minute. So I did it all over again, and 'surprise, surprise!' Hermione could give blood to any member of her family. 

Well, we tried the experiment and Moria was using her sister's wand the next minute to float a breakfast burrito off her plate. There came cheering and shouts of happiness, and by late afternoon a Hogwarts letter would arrive by one tired owl fresh from Scotland, to much glee and rejoicing. 

However, no sooner had Moria used a spell with her sister's wand than her mother also wanted to give this a try. She'd received Hermione's school memories, as had Moria, but all of Miranda's previous attempts to use her daughter's wand to cast a spell, any spell, had failed. 

Well, one small infusion later and she was floating her own burrito through the air. Then Ted gave it a try, and Hermione was being very brave about all of the recent pricks in her arm, but nothing her father did worked for him, in spite of having gotten a shot of her blood. 

Still, this hardly did anything to diminish the joy the family felt over Miranda and Moria casting spells, and I couldn't pin down what made it work for them but not for him, so even I didn't know how to make it work for Ted. I'd even offered him a second chance to share the memories they were using, but he declined, and made me promise never to offer again. 

However, him being unable to use magic even with a blood transfusion from a functioning witch did agree with my hypothesis that all a transfusion did was act as a starter engine, granting a spark to activate a gift that had already been there, just dormant. 

Except, of course, in my case, where JKR's Deus Ex Machina in the form of Lily's blood protection decided to rewrite me according to a different pattern - one by which I could be protecting Harry, thus explaining my extra gifts. 

Or that was the going theory of the moment, anyway. 

Everything was settled, for good or ill, by the time Tonks came out of her bath. This was not surprising, as she took exceedingly long baths. But she was a teenage girl, so that was almost expected. Still, Tonks was almost as delighted as the Grangers to see Moria casting spells with a wand, and we all promised the delighted and shining little girl a shopping trip for Hogwarts supplies once we got back to England. 

A shopping trip her mother was going to be indulging in too, even if she did intend to do all of her studying on the side, being too old for Hogwarts. 

It was at this point that Harry hauled out a blank piece of parchment, and with the words, "Of course I was raised in a barn, and I'd like to go home please." (What, did you think they'd use the same password for everything? I thought they were supposed to be creative) words swirled into place on the piece of paper, calling it the Marauder's Guide to Animagus Transformations. 

Harry was grinning with a touch of triumph. "I was given this by my birth father's two best friends, Sirius and Remus." 

Of course everyone wanted to study it at once, so we had to settle to having the kids take turns reading it aloud to the group. 

OoOoO 

A return letter from the pensieve-crafter arrived, and I took it and found to my delighted surprise that it contained not only a verbal answer to my questions, but a device contained in the paper itself, that fell out once I had opened the note. 

The man had been excited by the puzzle posed by my questions, and had whipped up a brand new device, of which I was gifted the first one, a memory duplicator. And, although the man insisted that it would do exactly as intended and create copies of stored memories, something could be slightly different about them, but he was having trouble pinning down exactly what. 

He then went on to explain that he had taken several memories from himself, his wife, and the family dog to duplicate and review. They all seemed fine to him, in spite of multiple viewings of each copy, but he still had a niggling feeling at the back of his throat that something was a bit off. 

Nevertheless, if there was he couldn't find it. So I was to use and enjoy the device he had created, and if I came across any oddities be sure to tell him at once. 

All rather kind of him. 

I immediately tested the device using some spare memories just lying about and it seemed to work as advertised. Viewing them in a pensieve everything seemed alright. 

So, I poured Slughorn's bucket through the object, creating enough copies for myself, Dora, Harry, and all of the magical Grangers, with one extra left over to save for future occasions, in case a need or use for it cropped up. 

Now, the question was, how to use them? 

Oh! Of course! Why hadn't I thought of it before? I grabbed Dora before she could get to her bath and cloister herself in the facilities for close to an hour and skipped off to join the family at breakfast. 

"Hello all!" I cried cheerily to each and sundry. "Look, a friend of mine just sent me a letter and, well, Miranda? You know how I was unable to make you a medical doctor because we did not have that material to splice in? Well, this is not muggle medicine, but someone just recently gave me a considerable amount of Potions education, which contributes to magical medicine, and I was wondering who'd like to try it with me?" 

Blank stares on all faces save Dora's and Ted's. Then suddenly the rest of them jumped like they'd been stuck by pins, suddenly recalling the lives they lived now were not always normal for them, and that we'd had a conversation about memory bits before. 

It was, quite frankly, easy to forget those sorts of things. 

Although, no sooner had they considered the change than each waxed poetic in bounding enthusiasm about how well it was working out for them, and so I was, rather predictably, swarmed by eager recruits, all willing to add to their experience in useful ways. 

Well and good. 

I was tempted, only tempted mind you, to lather Jello into their hair and add fresh lobster to the tops, telling them how it was all part of the spell, but I rather manfully resisted... 

...for a few minutes. 

Then, with Hermione now sporting a strawberry flavored coiffeur, her mother lime and her sister raspberry, with Harry suffering under chocolate pudding (Ted having excused himself rather early in these proceedings), and Dora in a delightful lemon jello hairdo, I put them all to sleep, cleaned them up with those household charms I stayed endlessly grateful for each and every time I used them, and this time, instead of editing their memories in place as I'd done before (and did not want to mess up a job so very well done) I poured a bucket of memories into each of their ears, ending with my own. 

It did not have quite the same effect as those others I had assimilated. 

From what I had done before it was obvious the usual perspective was first-person. In other words, you replaced the person who had given the memories in the first place, acting it out as they did. 

Well, apparently, that was what had changed in the copy procedure. 

With the first person perspective stripped out one simply appeared on scene just as if those memories were being viewed in a pensieve. It wasn't a thing you could notice about the memories if you were checking them over in the standard fashion, but from this perspective it was obvious. 

However, the mind did insist upon integrating them. So, when we appeared, it was as students who simply joined in on those classes, recalling them from the point of view of students under Slughorn rather than Slughorn himself. 

It was probably better that way. 

Another oddity of this copied memory approach was we all joined in these memories together. So, even though I'd poured a different batch into each of our heads, all of us were there participating in one another's versions of events and interacting fully with each other... 

As classmates of the Marauders. 

Snape was as terrible a person as a student as he'd later be as a teacher, and that brings me up to a rather lengthy tangent. 

The only person to ever say that James was anything less than wonderful in the books was Severus Snape, and I wouldn't trust him to tell me that the sky is up. It is also interesting to note that the only person to ever say that Severus Snape is a hero is Severus Snape. What I find fascinating is that he used memories to do so, when we all know from book six that memories can be faked. The specific example of faked memories used in book six was said to be a bad job, which implies rather strongly that there are such things as good jobs of memory faking. And a master Occlumens should be among those most qualified to fake them well, especially one with his own pensieve who could take them out at leisure and review them carefully for detail, doing them over and over again until he got it right. 

No, what it boils down to is that Rowling expects us to take Snape's word that Snape is a good guy, and I couldn't think of anyone less trustworthy on any issue of note. If you look at all of the evidence outside of his potentially faked memories, you find a pathetic, hate-filled, hurtful little man who can't give up a childish grudge and who bullies the innocent. And even if you take his memories as valid, then at best he is a creepy, mentally unbalanced stalker who ended up killing the target of his fixation and still treats everyone around him horribly. 

So, let us examine the case! 

The sum total of all evidence in favor of Snape being a good guy amounts to: Snape says so. Dumbledore believed Snape when he said so (and we all trust that paragon of good judgment to never make a mistake. No, not ever) 

Now for the evidence against: We have the testimony of every student who had him as a teacher. Even the Slytherins only like him because they feel he is a BAD guy! Every action of his we SEE, as opposed to hear about, is as foul and rotten as to cross every boundary of good conduct or decent behavior, all of which he should be expected to live up to as a school professor. 

Snape joined a cult of murderers, and fit in well enough that not even their leader, who was supposed to be the most accomplished mind-reader in two centuries, and who could insist that his 'loyal' follower lower his mind shields and subject himself to examination, could find any fault with his behavior as far as loyalty to the cause. Not even after other Death Eaters had accused Snape of disloyalty and Voldemort had every right and reason to probe his mind carefully. No, a man who would kill for little or no reason found not even the slightest hint of disloyalty or 'flaws' like regret or remorse in him. 

Snape killed Dumbledore, no one says he didn't, but he said he had permission . Now, what would the world be like if we let every murderer go who used the defense "he asked me to"? That is NOT a legally supportable defense! Even assisted suicide is STILL tried as murder! And that is when the victim does the deed mostly by himself and leaves behind letters and other physical evidence of his intentions, more than just the killer's word of "he asked me to"! 

And most of those assisted suicide cases had terminal conditions. 

On the excuse of having been mistreated as a youth, he'd then gone on to make a career out of abusing children for the rest of his life. It cannot be disputed that Snape terrorized a whole school, ruining countless children's education because he couldn't give up on his desire to inflict suffering on those who'd never done any harm to him, such as Neville Longbottom. 

Neville's parents had never done anything to Snape that we hear of, so why does he terrorize Neville? Or was everybody in the world a bully EXCEPT Snape? And he was just 'getting back' at them? 

Yeah, right. Like that's believable. 

You don't get a entire school full of children terrified of someone without a reason! And that reason is he takes every opportunity to hurt them! That is NOT a nice guy! No matter what he says! 

Every opportunity he gets to hurt the students, either individually or as a body in general, he takes. 

No, Severus Snape was no more of a 'good guy' than Pol Pot, whatever Rowling said. She may have meant otherwise, but that's not what she wrote. 

Actions speak louder than words. And because memories can be faked, they are no better than words: him claiming something. 

Now, Snape says that James was a bad guy. What is our evidence there? Once again we are faced with the awe-inspiring force of the argument: Snape says so. 

Who else agrees with him? Why, no one! Not even other Death Eaters ever had a word to say against James! Not even PETTIGREW, who'd whined that he 'never meant to kill Lily and James'. Do any other teachers? No, not one of them seems to have anything but the highest opinion of Lily and James. Does ANYONE but Snape EVER say anything nasty about Lily or James? NO! Not even Dumbledore, who blindly agrees with Snape on almost every other issue. 

Every other person has a AMAZINGLY high opinion of him! So did Lily, if that was the man she married! 

Then, even if we take Snape's claim that he loved Lily as true, how does he treat the child she left behind? Her only legacy and the last bit of 'her' still left in this world? With total contempt and hatred, just as if Harry was all James and no Lily. Or... as if Snape's claims of love for Lily were as false as his other many other statements, say, of loyalty to Dumbledore and the Dark Lord - he had to be lying to one of them! 

No, Snape may have been deluded enough to imagine that he loved her, but the evidence at hand all says he never had a clue as to what love really is. If he wasn't just making it up, playing 'pity party' to get Harry to forgive him. 

Now THAT! sounds like a manipulative, ambitious person, doesn't it? Lay down a few plots so that no matter which side triumphs, you are on it? Perhaps claim credit for a few events you heard about, but had no part in? 

No, if you say 'scheme', suddenly those out of character moments make so much sense with regard to the Snape we actually know, rather than the one we merely hear about. 

Ultimately, he did so much hurt and evil during his life that, even if he DID those things he was claiming, it in no way comes close to making up for all of the bad. A rare few, tiny deposits on the good side doesn't counter the massive karmic debt he worked up being evil, hurting an entire generation of kids - and let's not even discuss his Death Eater duties! 

And what about Snape's claim that James and his friends were bullies, not Severus himself? Well, claims aside, every time we see Snape in the books HE is the one being a bully (or a toady). So, which do you want to believe, his claims or his actions? They do nothing but contradict each other, so it is one or the other. 

Every time we see Snape 'on screen' as it were, he is an evil, self-righteous bastard whose behavior is less mature than a typical kindergarten student. And he maintained that for over a decade when there was no hint of his old boss around to impress. But we are supposed to believe it when he tells us he's really a tender old softy inside? 

It can only be two things, either insanity (schizophrenia and delusions are both possibilities), or it is a scheme. Either the guy is fruitier than a nutcake, or he was lying to get off easy should the Light win in the end. 

I'd been an actor long enough to know that the longer you wear the mask, the less it becomes a mask. Anyone who takes on a role finds themselves slowly shifting to become it. So, even if this STARTED as a part Snape was playing... it didn't stay one for long. 

There is an old saying used to comfort shy children, "Act like you are more confident, and you will be." 

However, in Snape's case that quote could be modified to, "Act like an evil, self-righteous, stuck up prick, who carries childish grudges forever, and picks on those weaker than him, and you will be." 

Rowling's attempt to 'save' Snape in her last book made about as much difference as rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The man was evil. 

A few, isolated good deeds do not make up for a lifetime spent doing harm. Hitler did favors for people he liked, but are you going to think he is a hero? And that's even assuming those deeds even happened. 

No one with any sense is going to argue that Snape didn't destroy the potions education of who even knows how many students, and Potions is a required subject for both Healers and Aurors - jobs that save lives. 

So, Snape was directly responsible for more destruction over a longer time than probably any other Death Eater. 

And Albus helped him do it. 

Myself, I learned first hand from living Slughorn's Potions class memories that the Marauders, even Pettigrew, were among the best people you could ever know. They were kind, witty, fun and stood up for others when those others needed standing up for. 

Their 'pranks' were a justice system, a supplement to the school one when and where it did not work as it should. Little toadies like Draco (or in this case Severus, who played almost the same role as a youth, just a little more intelligently) who could play the system against itself and so get away with appalling misconduct were the targets of this little band of brothers. 

Slughorn would protect his favorites, not as brazenly and openly as Severus had done, but still rather badly if you'd taken care to buy him off with treats and favors. 

We couldn't know about the rest of the school in detail, as those memories were strictly of Potions classes, but we did hear enough to know that there were others among the staff who behaved similarly. 

Was that school EVER run well? By which I mean fairly? 

Okay, I'll admit that brown nosing, bribery and status seeking made for great preparation for work in the Ministry of Magic, but... 

IT SHOULDN'T BE THAT WAY!!! 

Oh well, tangent over, we all woke up from our brief memory induced nap and felt both sadder and wiser by the experience. It wasn't the same as living those years with Harry's parents, as we could not interact with them, but we did come out of it knowing a heck of a lot more about them. 

Oh, and Potions too. 

I was surprised with myself for that feeling. Potions knowledge had been my entire purpose before, with the Marauding days a pleasant side note. Now my feelings had swung entirely the other way, with those memories of Harry's parents being cherished, and the Potions lore a mere add-on. A pleasant one, welcomed in its way, useful, but secondary to the real heart of the issue. 

Wow. Wherever they went, those guys had a powerful effect on people. 

Snape did too, only everyone who knew him hated him. 

Well, not entirely feeling like it, I still mustered enough courage to get out of my chair and start prodding the others into activity. We spent all of that day brewing potions of various sorts, solidifying our knowledge and getting real life experience to anchor our dreams. 

It was also plenty useful to have a ready stock of potions about, it must be said. 

"Anybody want some tea?" Miranda started to hand around cups to an accepting crowd. When she came to me I shook my head. 

"No. Thank you." 

She blinked at me in surprise. "Is it the blend?" She gave an understanding smile. "I know you rich toffs really cultivate your taste buds, and this is a little humble." 

"No, I don't drink tea." 

Some blinking. "You are British aren't you?" Moria asked. 

"No," I was in such good humor I was almost laughing. "It's not that at all. I am under oath not to partake of coffee, tea, alcohol or tobacco. They are against my religion." 

Ted shuffled his newspaper, grinning in good humor as he objected. "While I may agree with you as to the horrors of that alternative road surfacing known as 'coffee', a good cup of tea is a mark of culture and good health. Green teas are anyway, white teas are only suitable for a wakeup call at breakfast." 

Miranda stood blinking, teapot still in hands. "Just curious, I can understand the coffee and wine bits, but what's wrong with tea? Is it the caffeine part? Because a lot of herbal teas have no affect at all on the human body, and are just yummy. Like berry or citrus flavors and such. Or is it something about the tea making process?" 

I laughed, reaching into a pocket. "Nothing like that at all. Or rather, it may be but it doesn't matter. The commandment was given back when practically everyone in the Western Hemisphere drank alcohol and smoked, and the tea and coffee drinking habits were as well established then as they are now. It was another hundred years before science began to say 'Hey, wait a minute! Something about this actually seems to hurt people!' No, if you'll search the scriptures you'll find that God gives a great many more commandments than He does explanations. He commands, and we obey. That's all it takes." 

Hermione's face scrunched up in disagreement. "But why? Why would anyone obey blindly like that? It doesn't make any sense." 

She spoke as if chiding me for being a child. 

It did nothing to dim my good humor, and I cracked open the scripture set I had retrieved from out of my pocket. "Do you mean to say you don't follow the instructions of parents or teachers who know a great deal more about a subject than you? The key is that's it's not blind. I have verified the Source, and whatever He says is acceptable. As for why I do it? Because you can no sooner obey a commandment than the Lord doth immediately bless you, and I can use all of the blessings I can get." 

"So, what sort of blessing does he offer you for not drinking tea?" Harry asked, in tones that sounded rather strongly of a curious Hermione. 

"I'm glad you asked." I returned, finding the section in question. "Here it is, at the end of the description of the rules I just described to you: And all saints who remember to keep and do these sayings, walking in obedience to the commandments, shall receive health in their navel and marrow to their bones; And shall find wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures; And shall run and not be weary, and shall walk and not faint. And I, the Lord, give unto them a promise, that the destroying angel shall pass by them, as the children of Israel, and not slay them. Amen." 

"Amen," half the family echoed, without thinking about it. 

I closed my scripture set with a slap of pages, smiling at them. "Now, I don't know about anyone else, but for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. I also have to admit a certain desire to receive 'strength beyond my capacity' and other things that have been mentioned in conjunction with the various commandments I've been keeping. The Word of Wisdom, or the health code I just described to you, is but one of them." 

"Isn't that a lot of work?" Ted muttering disbelievingly. 

I laughed good naturedly, spreading my hands. "Do I look unhappy? Ask rather this: Would God, who knows all things, and desires for all men to be happy, give us any instructions that would harm us? Some of them may seem to from our limited understanding, but overall they work to our good. I see it this way: I can either learn by hard experience, bumping and bruising myself stumbling around in the dark to learn what's good for me and what isn't, or I can trust He who knows. I mean, really, how hard a choice is that to make? I bruise easily." 

Harry looked up at Miranda, asking, "Do we have any juice in the fridge?" 

The woman nodded, setting down her teapot. "Yes. I'll go get it." 

Ted scowled and served himself a cup of tea. 

OoOoO 

The remainder of that extra week was spent equal parts playing and training. Which, considering all female Grangers (and now Harry too) were all study-aholics, I couldn't tell which of those they found more fun. 

Well, good for them. 

Dora was able to teach us all, or at least us magic types, how to apparate just by repeating the lessons she'd been so recently given (it was done during the last year of school, which she'd only just completed). And I had a friend from the Roman Ministry (they'd still kept the old name back from the old days when this was the capital seat of an empire) issue us all international apparation licenses. Such was my fame that he didn't even ask, or test us, just filled out some forms sight unseen. 

I kept forgetting at times how fame could be so powerful. 

We kept refining our recently acquired Potions skills, and I was reminded of just why this was considered a core subject at Hogwarts, as these things could be so amazingly useful! It was in some ways like being able to carry a spell around in your pocket, except that potions did things no charm could do, and vice versa. 

We did have seven years of Potions study to solidify in our minds, so we did a lot of brewing. I was grateful for this, as buying potions pre-made was costly and this was a good way of getting our stocks in on useful things. We even started a few batches of Polyjuice (once I prompted Dora to admit that was a potion on some of the OWL tests). 

Even Tonks was eager to participate with us on this, as she explained she'd learned at least twice as much from those Slughorn memories as she ever had from Snape. 

Harry and Hermione were both eager to agree he was the superior teacher. 

So brewing our own was good practice to make those lessons our own, and it was wise in the long term, as not only was it expensive to buy them already made, but sometimes it was a matter of life and death who you trusted with things you put in your mouth. Plus, if you wanted to keep secrets, some things you just had to brew yourself. 

We also found time for the whole family of us to have our portraits done by some very talented Italian artists, both as individuals, then as groups. And I'd early on bought some good cameras so we could create a photo record of our vacation, trading the cameras around so we caught many actions scenes as the rest of us played around or just had fun. 

For his entire life, from the books, Harry had been clinging to a tiny slice of happy life that he could no longer even remember - his life with his parents. So I felt it was time that he had more happy events to remember. 

Dora also gave Harry and I instruction and helped us practice our metamorph abilities, which were coming along nicely, by which I mean we were showing a substantial amount of progress, not that we were anywhere near good yet. 

She also tested the Grangers, but no positives there. 

By playing host and 'rich uncle' I was able to use my charm to resolidify my place in the unit at last, so while Harry shared out vital animagus secrets from his Marauder's Guide, I chipped in and offered up for study the books on Occlumency Albus had loaned me. And, I have to admit, studying with a trio of Granger girls was an experience not to be missed, as they had sharp minds that leapt to insights in a heartbeat, and the more of them you gathered together, the more this reaction fed upon itself. 

Better still, they could often turn around and explain it in ways that helped you understand points the books often failed to get across. 

Possessing an agile mind as I did, I was far from sterile of ideas on my own and was able to participate in these round table discussions as an equal partner, while Harry, who was still sharpening his mind after years of disuse, learned quickly not only the subject, but our study styles. Dora just watched, wide eyed, head moving back and forth as if at a tennis match. 

Ted rented boats and went out fishing during our magic discussions. 

I was glad he was having fun. 

Sometime during this I had, with everyone's permission, taken inside of me my saved copy of the new Granger Family History (taking it in addition to everything else already in my head, rather than in replacement of, seeing as I knew I could handle the strain) to aid with my understanding and help me in these discussions. This time, I made official my 'rich uncle' position, as an unrelated friend of Hermione's parents from dental school who'd kept up that relationship through the years. 

And, again with their permission, a few wand flicks had solidified this in their minds as well. So that eliminated the last of the awkwardness. As, to their minds at least, I'd often stayed over at their house, and they at mine, and we'd frequently shared our vacations together. 

So it was, for all involved, a most amazingly productive week, and possibly the best part of all of it was on the last day of it when I found a friend in the Roman Ministry who was both able and willing to explain how the underage magic detection charms worked, and how to remove them. 

So, it was spells-free for Harry and the Granger kids from that point. 

OoOoO 

Well, now on reviewing my skills I could say that I had an extremely solid grounding in Hogwarts' first year subjects, seeing as I'd taken in Hermione's memories of those and she'd not only studied the lot, she'd gone ahead and done extra! I'd also taken her primary school education, so now I had a better taste of standard British education up to a point. 

And I was a dentist, thanks to Miranda, and 'our' shared school years with her and Ted (and what was up with Ted lately? He's acting so strange). 

I also had a good, solid handle on the standard seven years of Potions study. Everything else magical was a hodgepodge and a mixmash of mismatched skills, with certain specialties, but that was to be expected. 

I had, from among those memories Lockhart had stolen, an extremely good grounding in household magic, and my first hand exposure to magical beasts and creatures ranged from a near encyclopedic knowledge of pests all of the way up to include mainstays such as vampires, hags and ghouls, then some of the rarest of all magic creatures like one encounter with a demiguise, an ape-like creature whose hair can be spun into invisibility cloaks. (The wizard from whom Lockhart got the material for his novel 'Year with the Yeti' was actually a trained hunter of demiguise who'd gotten cut off from civilization, and whose discovery of the beast enabled him to harvest its pelt and weave a cloak which he used to escape back to his native country). 

Although, I was notably short on exposure to the higher end of dangerous magical monsters, such as acromantulas, basilisks, chimera, graphorn, manitcores and sphinxes, dementors and lethifolds, giants and dragons. 

The basilisk thing was worrisome, as I felt sure I'd be meeting one of those soon. Too soon by some standards. I hoped I survived the experience. But if I did, I'd have to curb my urge to celebrate until I'd faced Voldy's dementors and giants, which appeared on the playbook not long after. 

I had a smattering of healing spells, an ability that was shored up by our recent acquisition of superior understanding of basic potions (although there are many things they do not cover in a basic Hogwarts education). But I still considered this a weak subject, and I wanted all of the strength I could get on it. Dangers always brought with them a recurring need for medicine, and I'd probably be in the thick of it and could use every bit of anything I could get in this area. So despite having credit for great advances there, I felt the need for vast improvements on my talents in this department. 

Not the least of my medical concerns was converting over other muggle ideas, like corrective eye surgery for Harry (and I'm sure Harry wasn't the only one). Something they did not yet have a magical cure for. A cure which really ought to be easy, given what I knew of how the muggles were able to treat eye problems that wizards did not. 

I had taken in the specialized knowledge of an actual Sea Witch, so felt very comfortable in an aquatic environment, and could do things with boats that would probably prove useful. I had, at the very least, a 'home turf' advantage in water now, which could be strategically valuable if applied correctly. 

My smattering of mismatched spells included a decent amount of defensive magic. But this was another subject on which I felt a need for constant (and considerable) improvement. 

Occlumency was not a subject mastered overnight, so I had a long way to go on that topic before my skills were at a useful level. Harry would probably be feeling a benefit there sooner than I would, as blocking out his connection scar gave him a useful training tool. 

But we'd all still be averting our eyes from Dumbledore for quite a while. 

Our metamorph abilities were not so very hard to acquire. But, like drawing, while the basic skills were easy to get we'd be a long time achieving artistry. And, for now, we were still working toward our basic skill set there. 

Thus, in a nutshell, I was considerably more able to hold up the heroic image my predecessor had made for himself. I could be quizzed on a number of topics he was supposed to know about without fear of being tripped up, and could cast the majority of spells he was supposed to know. So, I was in no real danger of being proven a fraud any longer. 

However, I also had a long way to go before I'd judge myself to be anywhere close to being as competent as I felt I ought to be, or indeed needed to be! 

There was a whole lot of nasty stuff coming this way. 

My combat spells were scattered and spotty. If I, or an ally of mine, got hit I'd be very unlikely to be able to heal the injury. I knew some creatures but not a comprehensive list, and was especially weak on the truly dangerous stuff (most of which was due to get involved in this little adventure sooner or later). Most years of most Hogwarts subjects were a loss to me, and I'd be doing alot of work to recover from my predecessor's inattentiveness. 

On the plus side, I had a couple of lifetimes worth of mastery of several of the martial arts, both armed and unarmed, and my body was beginning to acclimate to those nicely. That would be a useful trump card to hold in reserve for a good surprise or two. 

I had a fair amount of musical and other art skills, including several singing voices, which I liked, even though they did little to improve my situation. And I had a smattering of totally unconnected trades, like cobbler and beautician, while I had Harry's experience to make me a proper domestic. 

One skill I needed to have, but didn't, was that of curse breaker. That was a specialty present among Lockhart's collection of memories, well represented even, as those brave men and women ventured down into all sorts of places where they had amazing adventures and encounters he'd found fascinating. It was just that the original Lockhart had, once he'd collected a good bit of those stories, realized that he'd never be able to pass himself off as having done them without the rare treasures they'd secured to back his claims up. 

So I'd be dipping into those soon, as that was a skill ideal for horcrux hunting. 

Oh well. The week was over, our vacation ended, and it was time that we, sandy and sweaty and having had a marvelous time, go back to rejoin English society. 

I knew our time away was too good to last forever. 

OoOoO   
Author's Notes: 

It helps me to stand back from a character who has recently been gaining abilities, and sum up what can and can't be done by him after such a major change. 

I also wanted to quantify memory charms. They are not all-powerful, or at least not in this work. Rowling made them pretty scary. But where she placed no limits on them, I do, and first among those is the fact that while they can alter memories to an amazing degree (but only the degree she first gave them), I don't let them touch personality. And, a fact I haven't gotten to yet, if you implant memories that are not a good fit for that personality it will fight against them and could eventually tear free. 

The fact that things are working out with Harry and the Grangers is due to the fact that they all chose compatible memories. Not an exact fit, but close enough. And since they are getting what they want out of them, along with constant reinforcement, they are likely to hold. 

But that's because they want them to. 

So nobody is going to be waving their wands to make bad guys into good guys, or vice versa, or at least they won't by the up-front, brute-force method. But then, lots of things that would fail by brute force methods could succeed if you've got a little force and a lot of cleverness. 

Still, setting out to achive what is often called impossible, sometimes succeeding and sometimes not, that is what makes a story isn't it? 


	8. Chapter 8

My Gilded Life   
Chapter Eight 

by Skysaber   
based on a challenge forwarded by Lionheart 

OoOoO 

As we returned from the Granger Family Vacation, I was busy pondering on how to prepare for events in our soon to be near future. 

Voldemort had displayed, more than once, effective control of Slytherin's pet basilisk. If we could do the same, we could neutralize his giants in battle, and possibly also the dementors. As, if that basilisk could turn a GHOST to stone, I had no doubts at all it could destroy some parasitic wraiths, and thus we could potentially be rid of those horrid dementors forever. 

All of them. 

Either the dementors were creatures, or they were some form of undead. Still, it didn't matter much what they were, Slytherin's pet basilisk could get them. It might have to BITE them, if whatever pseudo-sight they used for navigating didn't quite qualify for 'seeing' (And they had to have one. They'd never been said to either run into walls or phase through them, so they had some form of navigation other than 'there is human, go feed!' Curse Rowling for making them eyeless - but then again, ghosts didn't strictly speaking have EYES either, not in any physical sense), but if it's many-years dead venom was still potent enough to destroy horcruxes, by all reports some of the toughest anything around, then it would be potent enough to destroy dementors. 

All we had to do was learn how Tom controlled it. 

The trouble was, Rowling had never hinted as to how he'd done it. 

Oh, it was said, several times, in official materials that only a parcelmouth could control a basilisk. But there was so much that wasn't said (like how they protected themselves from its gaze) that how could anyone trust that was that all there was to it? 

I mean, sure, you had to have good eyes to be able to fly a plane. But that did not mean that everyone with perfect vision was a qualified pilot! 

It could be something as simple as just being a parcelmouth, and I was sure that had something to do with it. Heck, they even said so, many times. But was that all? Tom Riddle had also shown that some secrets down in that pit below the bathroom yielded to passwords, and he had obviously done quite a bit of research just to find that chamber in the first place, more to have the spoken codes to get things to work for him. In fact he had once confessed in the books, "It had taken me five whole years to find out everything I could about the Chamber of Secrets and discover the secret entrance." 

So, what did he know that we didn't? 

He MUST have a source of research that other people didn't have, as other people had tried to research too. Tom was not the first to try to find that secret chamber. Others had searched for it, many times. According to Binns, the entire Hogwarts staff had gotten together and made a concerted effort on at least one occasion. And these were not people who were unable to perform research! 

So, Tom had followed clues no one else was able to find, just to discover the chamber (and, on that note, I gave myself a reminder to go seeking out any images of snakes in the castle - or better yet, have the house elves map them for me, as there stood a good possibility of those being the 'secret message network' that Tom Riddle had followed on his research quest). 

So, what did he know about controlling that basilisk that we didn't? 

One thing it could not be was owning Salazar's blood, because Tom had done the controlling while possessing Ginny. Sure, she was a pureblood, so some remote trace of a connection was almost guaranteed. Still, it hardly merited concern, as if only a small trace was required, Harry and I must have remote yet sufficient ties as well, seeing as how we were both related to purebloods. 

Tom Riddle himself wasn't a pureblood. So, no, it was probably a combination of parceltongue and passwords, encoded commands if you will, for added security as snake language, while rare, wasn't entirely unknown, and no one wanted a monster of that size and power turning on them just because the person you were trying to destroy had the same ability (unless, of course, Salazar Slytherin was a complete and utter moron - which, with what I knew of wizards, I wasn't about to rule out). 

It was the passwords part that worried me, because the 'spirit Tom' from Riddle's diary was totally unafraid of Harry's trying to wrest control of the serpent from him. Which, if it had just been a parcelmouth vs parcelmouth issue, should have been a concern, not the least because Harry was alive and truly there, thus more real, whilst Tom was only a memory given form. 

There was also the rather major question as to how Tom had been immune to its gaze. Either that was a parcelmouth thing also (in which case, Harry's averting of his eyes during that fight had been entirely unnecessary), or it required some special preparation, like a potion or spell. 

I would assume something along the lines of preparations. 

In either case, finding out how Tom had done it was a priority, as immunity to a basilisk's gaze would be a useful attribute to have. But it was going to be a tricky thing to test, as you didn't want to think you had it and be wrong. 

Then again, even if you could command the thing, you couldn't really say you controlled a basilisk if looking at it would kill you too. That just made it too awkward for any kind of usage. So there had to be something more there, if immunity wasn't automatic for parcelmouths. 

Nor was that the only project on my plate right now. Although, the others just didn't sound as dramatic as using a thousand year old mass murdering snake to slaughter hundreds of undead wraiths. 

Detecting invisibility and making my own brooms could also be lifesavers. The brooms because of mobility, as apparation could be traced and floo was too easily restricted. I could buy my own brooms while the economy lasted, but I couldn't get replacements that way once everything collapsed, and the things did break every so often. Also, our group might grow, post-collapse. 

Detecting the invisible, on the other hand, seemed like such an amazingly useful skill to have all on its own, as not only could you deprive your enemy of a useful advantage (and everybody who had them used invisibility cloaks during a war) but you could also coordinate groups of invisible folks on your side. 

Luckily for me, the guy who'd had his memories stolen for my predecessor's 'Year of the Yeti' story was one of those rare people who'd been trained to hunt the naturally invisible demiguise, from which invisibility cloaks were made. Unfortunately for me, the original Lockhart hadn't saved the relevant portions of his training on how to do so. 

So, even though he'd used those skills in the portions of the story I'd taken inside myself, I did not have full mastery of them, nor an idea how to get it. The best I had was a gift that would flicker on and off from time to time. It was not at all reliable, and without reliability it wasn't terribly useful. 

So I had options of either seeking out demiguise hunter training, which was rare and specialized and, if I was thinking right, a couple of years long, or I could ask someone who knew for tips and pointers. The trouble with that was the only person I knew of who could see the invisible without a magical eye doing the work for him was Dumbledore. 

And, well, I had elected to tred softly when it came to sharing secrets with Dumbledore. I'd dropped some information I shouldn't have known in order to shock him into revealing or agreeing to things, but I didn't want him to have too terribly good a handle on what I could or could not do, as then he was almost guaranteed to discuss my abilities with Snape, and well you might as well take out a full page ad in the Daily Prophet as far as getting news to the enemy side. Telling Snape might even be faster and more effective. 

Traitors were always a threat, and once a traitor, always a traitor. Or, if a man was willing to betray once, he'll be willing to do so again. But we didn't have to guess, we knew from JKR's books that Snape was continually feeding accurate, and vital, plans to the enemy! Right up to the end! 

Mad-Eye Moody died because of him, and between the two, I'd choose to have Moody on my side, thank you very. 

Arriving back on the ferry from France, the Grangers collected their car from the hotel parking lot (it hadn't been there a full hour), and, before they left, I leaned in the window to say, "You know, what with the madhouse this place is likely to be for me in the near future, what's say we all plan to get back together in another week to go back for another week's vacation? I'm sure by then I could use it. And, if the kids can all pick up a Patronus charm to hold off the Lethifolds, we can even go someplace tropical for a change. How does that sound?" 

A firm round of agreement from everyone. Even Ted was looking forward to a second break. So we made a deal to make it happen and I was waving them all a fond goodbye before I'd even realized that Harry and Dora had driven off with them, as just two more members of the family. 

Shrugging, feeling it made no difference, I apparated to my penthouse. 

Harry should be fine in their care. 

Although, I did have to admit that kid had an awful lot of people who wanted him. And, he was sometimes too trusting. But still, unlike with the Marauder encounter, now he had Dora there to guard him. 

Harry had never been told by the two surviving Marauders that they were kidnapping him. They just proposed a small walk, and wended their way out of the hospital, by which time they overheard the news by excited and flustered hospital staff rushing about that Gilderoy Lockhart was back in there healing those who'd been deemed beyond hope, and that Frank and Alice Longbottom were up and demanding to go see their son. So, on meeting eyes and making a decision, they'd wandered right back inside. 

Harry never even knew he'd been kidnapped, or returned. 

They didn't even say those words to me, but I knew, and they could tell I had received their message. They could hardly have evaded my security charms on their way out by accident, after all. 

No, it was all done very subtly, and I for one was glad that Harry hadn't suffered any more trauma than the poor kid already had. But I also felt better that he had Dora there to watch him. 

So, for me, it was on to a round of awards and getting congratulated by some very self important men. They managed to give me an Order of Merlin, First Class, TWO times, one for each miraculous advance in magical healing, and there were whispers about doing a third, just to cover all of the people I'd personally healed, saying it was some kind of record. 

All of this did a great deal to reinforce my Lockhart personality. 

I dropped by the hospital to give Sirius a touch of assistance, using a much more minor version of what I'd done before, aiding him to repress memories of Azkaban (but not forget entirely) and reinforcing those memories he'd had from times before - including a great many that exposure to dementors had nearly driven from his mind. 

In all, after my visit, I had a much more happy and feeling himself Padfoot who was far less ragged and depressed than in the series. Such a change it was that even the Mediwitches agreed to rush ahead his release date, after some observation to make sure he didn't regress. 

Being much more himself than usual, he started to observe the nurses just as much if not more than they were observing him, and he'd be chasing some skirts before they let him out of there (with lipstick on his face). 

And, unfortunately, I got tagged with another 'medical advance' - this one for treating patients of dementor exposure, and I almost had Fudge chasing me around about that third Merlin. 

So, another round of making speeches, posing for photos and giving out autographs consumed the next few days. However, the publicity was nice for my books, and I did still manage to fit in a project or two on the side, mostly in the evenings when I had more time. 

Writing the book about Harry's life with the Dursleys was no trouble at all, as I already had a good outline and impression of what I was going to write, and I had his memories there to help me by granting specific instances. But I made Harry help me to write it, as he needed the experience, so I spent most of my evenings over at the Granger house getting him to help me. This also had the salutary effect of making both him and his family realize what I had saved him from, and how much better (if false) things were for them now. 

However, with Harry being slow about writing, yet needing the experience, I drew on my art lessons as the sword-wielding Frenchman, and did what all good French artists would abhor by drawing manga with those skills. 

Moria surprised me by looking over my shoulder, then asking what came next. This astonished me somewhat, as I'd been doodling scenes from my fanfics and these were all well established characters. So, I got on the phone to buy her the original sets, as that way she could understand what I was doing, or at least the points I was departing from. 

Only... nobody sold them. 

Getting back off the phone to a major publisher, who'd never heard of Rumiko Takahashi, Clamp, Kosuke Fujishima, Naoko Takeuchi or most others I was familiar with, I grabbed a coat and went out to check some retail stores and talk with some college anime nerds. 

Nobody had ever heard of Ranma 1/2, Cardcaptor Sakura, Ah! My Goddess, Sailor Moon, Tenchi Muyo, Evangelion or any other series I was familiar with, major or minor. There weren't even some classics, like Bubblegum Crisis. 

Heck, some of the major GENRES didn't exist! 

The classic Magical Girl show, originally touched off by the popular Sailor Moon (or so I'm told) had never made an appearance here. And most anime made the Star Blazers and Voltron vintage stuff look revolutionary. Don't even ask about Robotech or Gundam. 

It was an entirely different world, and their entertainment, though similar most of the time, was different. 

Less... energized, at least from my perspective. 

This even proved true, on investigation, of muggle films. The big thing in the theaters was along the lines of Three Men And A Baby. Special effects had never made that huge surge in the sixties and seventies, and they were all stuck using trapdoors, smoke and puppets on wires like a remake of the Wizard of OZ. It was a 1940s film world, only dark like the 90s. 

Star Wars, Star Trek, Matrix... none of these had ever appeared, were even possible to film under their current limitations! 

They couldn't even film Superman. Heck, to do BATMAN right was outside of their ability! Although those, and other classic heroes, did exist in comic book forms, pretty much unchanged from what I knew. 

Not to say that I knew a great deal about them, however. 

Schwarzenegger had died in his twenties without leaving his native Austria, George Lucus was (I would later find) a gas station attendant... they didn't even have Monty Python here! (although that lay within their technical ability at least, if not their writing one) Tom and Jerry was about the limit of their cartoons, although Disney classics seemed to be chugging along fairly well, and from the posters outside the movie place Gone With The Wind was in its fourth remake and Hollywood was about to come out with Rocky IIVX... 

Talk about low creative energy! 

They had DVD storage technology, just nothing I would consider worthy of putting on a disk. Photoshop and its equivalents had never appeared, so people still trusted a picture to never lie. 

Playstation games were more along the lines of Pong and Space Invaders than anything I'd associate with the set. 

It was odd to say the least. 

I had heard of that 'Different realities vibrate along different wavelengths' possibility, where authors and writers from one universe who were slightly out of tune with their own could pick up something from another, and from that compose their stories. I'd even used some references in my fanfics. There were a few times that I'd made reference to being from an 'observer' universe that had no super heroes, only comics about them. 

Perhaps that was a more valid theory than I'd thought? 

After all, with active wizards running about, this world actually had a great deal more energy in play than my own did. Perhaps those worlds that had real super heroes didn't need to view comics about them as much? Or maybe it was that whatever energies caused those heroes to arise also put a damper on 'hearing' things from other places? After all, if you turned up the volume on your stereo it was hard to hear anything else going on across the street. 

Maybe. 

It was a theory. All I knew was that the local manga and films were about as interesting to me as sucking on wet cardboard. I'd feasted on far better than this from what was available at home. 

So, returning from a frantic couple of hours checking in at all known sources to give a report to the Grangers about not finding what I was after, I got captured by Moria who again asked me what came next, only now both Harry and Hermione were interested too, and Ted and Miranda were somewhat awed by my artwork as they looked over what I'd left behind with them. 

So, getting a wild hair, I decided to tell them. I took the next day off of my Ministry and public duty rounds, and toward evening presented them with a copy of the very first Ranma 1/2 manga this universe had ever seen, doing the story over again from the beginning, suitably altered to suit my tastes. 

Hey! If I was going to do it I was at least going to enjoy it! And there were some things that irked me about the originals, else I wouldn't have been writing fanfiction. 

It was an instant smash success around the Granger household. 

Upon being successfully captured by doe-eyed younglings who pleaded with me not to stop telling those wonderful stories, I decided that if I was going to be roped into doing them all again I might as well publish them, as that way I could at least make some money to use to fuel the war against Voldemort. 

So, I used some of that gold from the submarine, bought out a publisher, and a good distributor, and an interest in a chain of bookstores, too (it was amazing, the worth of a gold coin, if you didn't exchange it through goblins), and now under a crushing weight of business loans, set them to publishing manga for me, hoping that all went well. 

It had better, or I'd be financially crushed. 

On that note, I made certain to hit Slughorn up for a dose of Felix Felicis before I signed the contracts or loan notes. Then I gave them the beginnings of three or four series. 

It would be more later. 

OoOoO 

I returned home the next day to find a letter from Dumbledore in the in box (I kept one enchanted else I'd be plagued with owls fluttering around my head all day) and it was terse, brief, and contained a portkey that was due to trigger in a little less than half an hour. 

It was time for my talk with the Flamels. 

First, I scribed off a quick note to Tonks, sending it by owl to get another plot of mine moving. "Hello, Dora. Would you be a dear and go out shopping for a half dozen packs of marshmallows and transfigure them all into big, nasty, hairy spiders for me? I'll need them in an hour or two, so if you could drop them by my house? Thanks, Gilderoy!" 

I arrived in a small, walled courtyard festooned with plants, and no sooner did I do so than the house shook with a shout under a Sonorus charm. "Go away! We don't want any more well-meaning gold diggers, distant relations or friends of Albus Dumbledore!!" 

Ah. From this I perceived that I was not the first one Albus had sent here. 

"And what about people here to do you a favor?" I called back in good humor. 

A door in the house this courtyard faced swung open, revealing an old man with a scowl on his face. "Favor?" He snapped in a confrontational tone of voice. "Let me tell you something, my lad. The last 'favor' anyone in the wizarding world did for me was when Albus somehow convinced me to let him take over guarding my stone for me. And you know what he did? Destroyed it! It was 'for the greater good' he said! My property couldn't be allowed to exist because it was too tempting to Dark Lords, he said! And the stinking son of a malodorous hooker did so without even asking me! Just told me after the fact that my wife and I were doomed to die, as he hadn't given us enough warning to prepare a replacement ahead of time. NO! That's the last FAVOR anyone in the wizarding world will ever do for me!!!" 

Okay, I'd wondered about that. Dumbledore's eye-twinkling declaration of 'my friend and I have had a little chat' to Harry was often a euphemism people used for 'we had a big argument'. Now I knew why. 

And why did it not surprise me that Albus was willing to do things that left those who'd trusted him swinging in the breeze like that? But I had to speak quickly lest Flamel duck back inside, ruining my last chance. 

"Don't be so sure," I pulled his Philosopher's Stone out of my pocket and showed it to him, holding it up in the light. 

He froze as if pinned in place, squinting at me in disbelief. 

I held it out for him to take, saying confidently, "It's the original. I switched it with a fake before Dumbledore came on the scene, fearing he'd do exactly as he did and destroy what he found. You'll find it unchanged from the moment I first saw it. I came here to return it, hoping that you'd be generous on it's recovery. All I ask is that you teach me how to make my own." 

Nicholas came scuttling over and received the stone from my hands. Looking it over, he blinked up at me with a complete lack of hostility. "Come inside." 

The home within was not what one would expect of a man who had infinite gold at his disposal. It was merely a warm and cozy home, which was often the sort of pleasure the rich denied themselves, then wondered what was missing from their lives after having chosen to live in museums. 

There was a cauldron bubbling over a fire, one with a sapphire blue syrup churning inside. An old witch stood by it, stirring, who looked up in disbelief when I stepped inside. 

Nicholas flashed her the stone, and quietly went about obscure preparations, gathering odds and ends from around his kitchen. "We were preparing a new Stone of our own, on the off chance either of us lived long enough to see it completed. You can have that one." 

"Thank you," I said with a deep and respectful bow. "But I find knowledge to be equally precious. So I hope you'll be kind enough to explain how a Stone of this sort is made?" 

"It's not hard." He shrugged. "All you need are six smurfs." 

I nearly shot my tongue across the room in my surprise. Instead, I dabbed a bit of something off my lip with a handkerchief and delicately asked, "Does the name 'Gargamel' mean anything to you?" 

Nicholas and his wife looked at me sharply once again. Then Nicholas gave an uncaring shrug. "It's not like it matters, but that was a name I once tried to be a Dark Lord under. I wasn't very successful." 

"And, Azreal was your familiar? A cat?" I probed, quite in spite of myself. 

"Yes," the former Gargamel shot a confused look at me out from under his brows. "How did you know about that? That was six hundred years ago?" 

I coughed delicately before replacing my handkerchief in my sleeve. "Sorry, I am somewhat fond of history, and the only stories I've read concerning smurfs also had a wizard in them, always trying to catch them, and the wizard and his familiar had the names I've just given you." 

Weird what you could catch from Saturday morning cartoons. I was positively weirded out by having the bad guy of a kids show standing before me now. It made me wonder for a second how Handy and Brainy and Smurfette and all them were doing, and which ones he'd caught to make his stone out of. 

Nicholas snorted, bringing a pot filled with odds and ends over to the fire to hang beside the sapphire-liquid-filled one. "I'd like to see that history, as I'd never heard of it before now." 

I actually blushed, and focused on playing with the cuff of my sleeve. "Yes, well, unfortunately the only name I recall is 'The Smurfs'. But I was a child at the time. It had something about a Prince Rohan in it as well." 

Nicholas and his wife met gazes, then simultaneously broke out laughing. "Oh! That's a name I haven't heard in... oh, it's been a long time." The former Gargamel wheezed in good humor, weak from the effects of his laughter. 

With that, we settled down to pleasant and congenial conversation. 

OoOoO 

On my way back to Hogwarts I was considering many things, not the least of which was how I'd hide the brand new Philosopher's Stone Nicholas and his wife promised to give me once they'd completed it (they didn't need two), and how to use it while keeping it out of sight. 

And, out of the hands of people like Dumbledore. 

The former Gargamel and his wife had actually been stellar company, quite knowledgeable and a very good teacher on a wide range of subjects, including the formulas for how to use the Stone. It turned out that the elixir produced by the Stone only delayed old age, extending the lifespan while preventing the drinker from growing any older. But it didn't make you any younger. It was rather close to an equivalent for a Potion of Longevity out of 1st Ed D&D. So, I'd shared with the couple a good dozen ideas off of which youth potions might be based out of my Dungeons and Dragons experience, and they'd promised to work on them, taking over that project for me with a will. 

Good. One more thing off of my 'to do' list. 

And, in return for my assistance there they had also shared with me other secrets, one of which turned out to be an item on my 'I don't know how, but if I get a chance it would be good to do this' list. 

In Rowling's 'Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them' she lists a humble animal called a Murtlap, which she describes as a ratlike animal living in the coastal areas of Britain, and the only useful or interesting feature about this creature is a growth on its back resembling a sea anemone. 

However, that growth really was an interesting feature, as once pickled and eaten it provided resistance to curses and jinxes. And the only side effect noted was that an overdose would lead to unsightly purple ear hair, which immediately caused me to wonder why Moody didn't have hairy, purple ears. 

Well, whatever, I wasn't ever going to accuse JKR of being consistent. But I first read that book staring at an item never developed in any of her novels, or fanfics that I knew of, that took the worst threats of the series and gave you resistance to them. Oh, sure, everyone with any sense wore armor, but this gave you a measure of protection worked into your very tissue! 

That could be done IN ADDITION to armor! And it was selective! It didn't make you resist all magic, stopping useful stuff like healing spells and the like, only bad stuff: curses and jinxes! 

I didn't know for how long, of course, or any of the specifics, really. Things like the amount of resistance, what kind of harm you'd be avoiding (after all, resistance is not immunity, so logic suggests something would be left), but nonetheless, I'd planned to look into that! 

However, the Flamels had already researched that for me. They'd done the work a couple of hundred years ago, and never released it, knowing if they did so it would spread to Dark wizards as quickly as to Light. Quicker, really, the way Rowling wrote it, only Dark wizards ever prepared to fight. The Light stood around waiting to get attacked, but took precious few precautions to protect themselves up until they got killed. Perfect victims, really. 

But truly? Light and Dark wasn't the heart and core of it. This was personal for the Flamels. 

Actually, on reflection it should have been obvious, but this entire 'people want to steal my Stone' thing was hardly new to the Flamels. As might be reasonably expected, no sooner had he created it than everyone around had wanted to take it from him! 

The couple had survived by hiding from and running from practically everyone - and they'd never quite given up on the hiding part. However, soon into their lives of ducking out on Stone-seekers of every type, they'd elected to work on how to defend themselves, and the Murtlap thing had been only one of their first projects! And, they'd long ago perfected a recipe over ten times as powerful as the simple (and known) pickling method. 

This, and many other recipes, the Flamels had sworn to each other to keep to themselves for the most part, and they'd also sworn never to let anyone else use their Stone. Then gone ahead and made themselves nearly unkillable, doing a half millennia of research on the subject of protecting themselves, although they did not go the way Moldy had. They didn't go at it from the angle of 'when I die, this will bring me back, and thus I'll be immortal!' gig. No, they'd done it practically the same way I would've in their place, the 'I will layer myself with so many defenses that I'll be so extremely hard to kill that eventually no one will try' approach. 

And it worked. It had worked out well for them. The couple were harder to kill than a pair of dragons, and their home riddled with so many defenses that it made Gringotts' most secure vaults look sick. 

However, with a perfect defense comes a gradually lessening of dangers, which leads in turn to a relaxing of the mindset that had brought about those defenses in the first place. 

I was sketchy on the details of how they'd first met, but when Dumbledore had studied alchemy under them that old boy had discovered a potion that used the elixir of life as a base, but once imbibed made the body as supple as a young boy, eliminating many of the pains of old age. 

And, as they had already been of advanced years before Flamel first made the Stone, they had been so grateful they had entrusted it to him to do more research with. And Albus had ended up betraying that trust by destroying the Stone (or so he thought, and told them), for 'the Greater Good' because it would be so wrong if a Dark Lord got it. 

Well, no Dark Nobody was ever going to get it from the Flamels. They just weren't! In six centuries, the only person to ever get that Stone from out of their grasp was Dumbledore himself, and he'd done it only to betray their trust. They weren't going to let it out of their sight again. 

The couple were extreme duelists, because they'd had to be from all of the times they'd been attacked in public and in private during various attempts to get their Stone. Their home was warded like nobody's business, making a simple Fidelius look like child's play, because again of all of the attempts employing curse breakers to sneak in and take the Stone. And they had started small, but eventually built up a set of personal defenses second to none, to where it really might be easier to kill a nundu than them. Actually, groups large enough to subdue a nundu had tried (about 40 or so at once). 

However, by granting Albus the key to their longevity, he had doomed them both to die from the one thing they'd stopped fearing long ago: the end of their natural lifespan. And he'd done so at a time when they were running short on their elixir, so they didn't have time to make another Stone before the years ran out on them. 

In gratitude for saving their lives from Dumbledore's (possibly?) well intended murder of them, the pair had agreed to mentor me, effectively adopting me as far as the sharing of secrets went. Unfortunately, there was so much to learn that even with their help I'd be decades catching up to where they were, and still I suspected there would be secrets they'd be keeping back. 

I would in their place. 

Still, I was quite looking forward to it, as the couple were fascinating to listen to, and had a way with words to go with a wide knowledge base, on top of being nice people, having worked out whatever problems they'd had in their youths long ago. 

I found myself wishing Harry would marry as well, as the couple truly suited each other. 

Harry. 

Well, even I had to admit that I had done a lot of damage to the possibility of Harry ever marrying Hermione, as growing up together they'd find it a little creepy, even though it was not totally out of the realm of possibility because they knew they were not related. 

Still, I could hardly doubt that I'd all but shut down any chance he might have had with the person I considered the most marriageable girl in the series. Not just for Harry, but the best match, PERIOD! 

For anyone. 

She was a hardworking, attractive girl, who had a good head on her shoulders and was loyal, diligent and brave. You couldn't ask for much more than that. And if you did ask, good luck on finding anyone who could deliver. 

Now he was left with only second-stringers in the lineup, and of those the most probable was likely to be Ginny. 

I'd read many fanfics where those two got together that were well written, logical, believable, even compelling. Sadly, none of those were true about the way Rowling handled the situation. 

My only complaint with her Harry/Ginny relationship was that it was rushed almost to the point of insanity. Ginny loved him before she knew him, and why? Because he was famous. She was a groupie, one who knew nothing of him beyond his fame, and avoided knowing anything else about him. She didn't hang out with him at school and was not present on most of his adventures. 

She was, in fact, in love with that very part of him he himself detests - his fame. She wasn't even a main character, not even in the books where they 'fall in love', just one of the fringe hangers on. She was background, at best. Then, suddenly, while she's busy snogging every boy in the school, Harry just up and decides that he loves her, out of nowhere, with no reason given. 

It was irrational to the point of comedy. 

What turned it from comedy to tragedy was that Rowling meant it seriously. 

Nothing got developed, it just sprang out of nowhere full-blown. They didn't slowly fall in love, or even get to know each other, really. Frankly, it all made as little sense as those bizarre fanfics that had Draco and Harry suddenly start kissing. Her plot was that poorly developed. Then she started to pair up other characters like she was throwing darts at a board with their names on it. And the 'Ron and Hermione must love each other because they are always fighting' once again had eerie overtones of a Draco and Harry snogfest. 

It would be comedic if it wasn't tragic. 

No, I am surprised Rowling didn't pair Crookshanks with a major female character. It made about as little sense as any of her other matches, more if you were thinking to pair him with McGonagall. 

After all, they were similar races (part of the time) and were opposite genders! Wow! That's as much as some of those others have in common! 

And, speaking of her, I was on my way through Hogwarts when once more McGonagall came upon me in the halls. "Ah, Gilderoy. What brings you to Hogwarts today? We are just shutting down for the summer." 

I nodded graciously. "So I understand. But I have an appointment with Albus and was hoping to get him to identify this for me while I was there." I held up the cane I'd found in the submarine. 

She blinked at it several times, surprised, before turning a shocked look at me. "Where did you get this?" 

I made a magnanimous gesture. "Oh, I found it while diving off the coast of Italy. It hasn't corroded, so I feel sure that it's magic. Trouble is, I don't know what it does. So I was hoping he could enlighten me." 

"Oh, I know quite well what it does," She told me soberly, still looking over the cane as though she'd seen a ghost. Asking permission with her eyes, she reached out and touched it, and I could see a flare of magic in the jewel on the end as she did. A fond smile came to her face as it reacted thus. 

Then her gaze came back upon me. "This is a McGonagall family relic, a cane dating back several centuries to where nobles used such to symbolize their authority. It could even be Roman in origin, but it's been in my family for generations. We gave it into the keeping of a certain submarine captain as collateral against my hand, a loan that was to be repaid by giving my life into the possession of the person who brought us back this cane." 

"Then I shall be only to happy to return to you what is yours and call that loan repaid by your stellar company already enjoyed thus far," I presented her the cane, with a small bow to flavor it. "And I shall call myself fortunate to have had this opportunity to do you and your family this service. May your relic be restored to you along with some measure of peace and prosperity." 

"Thank you," she accepted it with a smile, favoring me with what almost might have been a grin under better circumstances as she lifted her eyebrow to say. "You know, according to ancient custom, I now belong to you." 

I rolled my eyes playfully, returning with humor, "And according to common perception, my life belongs to my fans. But fortunately we appear to be the only ones who know about this, and thus can freely ignore it at our whim." 

Her tone grew serious, as she held the cane in both hands, close to her chest as her eyes, dare I say it, grew misty. "Still, such as I am, I am yours." 

I returned then with equal seriousness. Taking one of her hands, I kissed it gallantly. "Then all that I shall require of you is a glimpse of that girl you told me of, who once was quite a troublemaker, and Beater for her house team." 

She smiled, and dimpled as she did so. "I think that can be arranged." 

I bowed, still holding her hand. "I am deeply gratified." Then, standing up, I asked, "Would now be a bad time to ask you about certain memories? I had an idea to help Harry know his parents better, but I was also hoping for some tips on teaching well, and I was thinking you could help me..." 

Soon after, I had a bucket of Transfiguration class memories starring the Marauders in my hands. 

We parted as she returned to her quarters, and I to my other plans, quietly thinking about her situation, and the whole 'I belong to anyone who brings us back this cane,' dilemma. Now, hopefully resolved to the good. 

It was actually less unique or odd than you might think in magical society. 

I actually knew far more than I wanted to about pureblood customs from my various acquired memories by now. And what I'd learned disturbed me. 

Like most societies that had grown old, rich, corrupt and decadent, having worked itself into a really skewed values system, the Purebloods were into sexual deviancy in a big way. I suppose when marriage was just a carefully calculated move to make in a huge social strategy game of prestige and power, one where love for your spouse never entered into it, as it was all about forming alliances or climbing social ladders, that it had a corrosive influence on the family and traditional morality. 

Thus, a low birthrate, as whatever it was they were doing to relieve stress or amuse themselves very often had little to do with what produced babies. 

The Purebloods weren't dying off because their wars were killing them. They were disappearing because men weren't interested in their wives, having other habits more dear to them that I didn't even want to begin to speculate upon, as the mere thought made me sick. 

They probably would not have made it this far were it not for the fact that there were spells for men who had no interest in women to artificially inseminate their wives, and this had been done by Lucius on Narcissa (to name one rather well known case as an example) solely because it was 'proper' and an advantageous social move to have an heir, just like it had been a cunning move in the social strategy game to marry her. 

This sort of thing had been going on for generations now. 

Poor families like the Weasleys amused themselves in a more traditional manner, and couldn't afford the costly ritual components of the artificial insemination spell even if they swung that way. 

This was actually a good part of what stopped them from being 'proper' purebloods, at least in some minds. 

Rich purebloods like the Malfoys, however, well, from what I overheard Lucius was more interested in Draco than his wife's company, and he'd barely tolerated Narcissa enough to let her live in the same house. Perversely, he also kept her under effective lock and key so she couldn't abuse his position, bringing a scandal down on them by getting together with someone else. 

THIS was what was normal and respected! At least as far as the upper crust of pureblood society circles were concerned. 

I was almost reminded of that once oh-so-prevalent Chinese tradition of breaking the feet of little girls, bending them in half, and then tying them so they healed that way. It rendered them decorative, and nothing else. Walking was almost impossible, so they became largely helpless and you didn't ever have to be concerned about the little critters getting uppity. 

Some people accepted some pretty wiggy stuff as 'normal'. 

Apparently the explosion of halfbloods came about as every pureblood who was even remotely normal got involved in a rush to marry muggleborns or full on muggles in attempts to escape the perverse tendencies of their kin (not that I could blame them, as I would've done the same in their place). 

This rush had actually made what remained of pureblood society worse as all of the good ones practically fell over each other in attempts to escape it. But I could see why those who'd done it did do it, for all of their sneering at her Andromeda was the only one of the Black sisters to have anything close to a normal marriage. 

Lucius had once boasted to Crabb that he'd never even seen Narcissa naked, nor did he ever intend to. I don't know what was wrong with the LeStrange brothers but they were so interested in their twisted little games they'd never bothered to do the heir thing to Bellatrix, not even via spell. 

But then, the gossip went they were always into pain in a big way, and rumors held they had a way to rewire the brain to read pain as pleasure and vice versa. And, I had to admit, that could go a long way to explaining the behavior and attitudes of Bella in the series. 

She positively adored Voldemort. Why? Well, that bastard did go around causing a lot of pain, and it was commonly known among the ancient families that the poor girl had always been something of an empath. So she'd pick up on not only her own, but the pain of anyone around her. 

Ick. These guys really made me sick, you know that? 

As a side effect of that, and the Purebloods' traditional control of most of the power in the Ministry through wealth and connections, there were very few laws about what was legal and what was not, as far as relationships were concerned. Although Aberforth had managed to cross one, not with anything HE did, but by casting spells on the goats of another family to get them to talk about what THEY did! Airing in public what everyone preferred to keep behind closed doors. 

It was a sick, sick, screwed up pureblood world. 

And, what was probably most frightening of all, these guys wanted to be in a position of control so they could call the shots and dictate to everyone else what they could or could not do. 

And there could be no doubt they'd be doing so to amuse themselves. 

OoOoO   
Author's Notes: 

I have only just now discovered something about myself. When someone challenges me on an issue I explain myself, drawing out my reasons for holding that position. 

This is interpreted by people as rants. 

But I only really do it when something happens like people decry me for not liking Snape, and then I explain why I don't like Snape, listing out my arguments. Or they decry me for killing, then I describe the times and circumstances under which we are told to kill, and so on. 

All I am doing is answering their objections, but then they object to getting answers. What is a guy to do? 

I suppose it would go faster if I didn't stop to explain anything. Oh, well. Live and learn. 


	9. Chapter 9

My Gilded Life   
Chapter Nine 

by Skysaber   
based on a challenge forwarded by Lionheart 

OoOoO 

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore sat in his office feeling pleased with himself. His recent efforts to clear his name from the Harry Potter living at the Dursleys scandal were bearing fruit, and it seemed a short time indeed before he could put that setback behind him entirely. 

It was indeed excellent news. 

And, further plots were coming along nicely. The situation with Harry seemed, if not quite as well in hand as he might've liked, still doing splendidly on all issues of concern. 

Save one. 

Gilderoy Lockhart. 

He was an excellent choice of guardian for the purity of the blood protection he could offer, but there was another matter, a much more concerning one on the whole to the Headmaster of Hogwarts. 

Could he be controlled? 

At first the answer had been obviously 'Yes', but Albus was now wondering if he had somehow been deceived, as the man was acting nothing like he should have from what he'd seen on his first and only (since graduation, really) trip looking through the young teacher's mind. 

On the one hand it was excellent they had such a qualified Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor already signed on so early after losing their last one. While on the other, the man had a disturbing tendency to escape Albus' best calculations. 

For instance, he'd been certain the man wasn't qualified to teach at all. 

At first he had been certain the man was a fraud, and was not terribly willing to hire him on that count. However, later demonstrations had made it clear that whatever he was, he was not the powerless and posturing fool Albus had first taken him for. 

That was both good... and bad. 

Gilderoy had admitted to being unable to defend against Legilimency, but he had somehow deceived Albus' probes in their initial interview nonetheless, and had been avoiding meeting his eyes since then. So, whatever it was he had used, it appeared he had used it up. But still, Albus did not know what or how it was done, which he considered to be worrisome. 

Then there came the man's disturbing tendency to know about things he shouldn't, no one should, have the slightest clue on. Severus bearing that bit of prophecy to Voldemort was among the least well known secrets available, yet he had known. Indeed, he had threatened him with that knowledge. 

The existence of a prophecy was not unknown. That one was guarded for Harry by the Ministry of Magic was something of an open secret. But the part of his Potions Master in its dissemination was quite unknown to all but a few. Indeed, Dumbledore had been convinced it was unknown to all but himself and Severus... 

And Voldemort. 

Well, that raised a disturbing line of speculation as to where Gilderoy might have heard the secret. However, for all of his foibles, faults and secrets, Albus had felt his newest teacher to be a good man. Perhaps, it was possible that the spirit of Voldemort had, during its wanderings shared certain tidbits of information with other dark creatures. 

Secrets were all that Voldemort's disembodied self could presently offer, so it made sense after a fashion for him to offer those in trade for assistance he so desperately required, and it would be among dark creatures, as the only ones liable to trade with the former dark lord. 

And, according to Gilderoy's books (although not, curiously, his mind on that one occasion he had been afforded to read it), he had quite a large amount of experience as a hunter and destroyer of dark creatures, some of which may well have parted with information at some point, either during the hunt or slightly after, in trying to bargain for a release. 

So, yes, it was indeed possible that his newest professor had come by that knowledge more or less innocently. However, it was also possible that he had not. And it would hardly do for the school's reputation to have two defense teachers in a row possessed by Voldemort. 

Albus regretfully resolved to keep a much closer eye on Gilderoy from now on. 

He was just concluding this when a letter arrived from Gringotts. Curious, Albus opened it, and upon seeing an itemized list, saw that he was getting his bill for Harry's little shopping trip. 

His jaw fell open and he fell backwards out of his chair a moment later. 

OoOoO 

My appointment with Albus Dumbledore did not go as expected. Or rather, I should say his rather steely cold reception of me was new. But, as I saw the open bill lying on the desk, I at least knew why. 

My smirk was openly mischievous. "Really, Albus, the boy had nothing, and as you ought to know, celebrities do not live cheaply. He is now in a far better position to survive the attention and stares you knew all along he would be receiving. At least now they don't point and gossip about his threadbare and ill-fitting clothes, or shoes held together by that fascinating muggle thing they call tape, I believe it is." 

He was scowling at me. "Gilderoy, I believe there might be a little abuse of trust here. You might have made a little effort to be frugal." 

"Oh! But we did, Albus!" I blurted, interrupting his monologue. Allowing my eyes to stray close enough to him to see the list (without including his face) I even pointed to one item helpfully. "There! You see?" 

"And what do auto-sizing charms have to do with frugality?" He muttered. 

I sighed and rolled my eyes. "Albus! That is a little boy, doing what all little boys do: He is growing. Indeed, at that age they grow up so fast it is scarcely credible. By buying auto-sizing clothes he will be able to remain in those same outfits for far longer. It's a simple matter of spend a bit now to avoid having to replace everything later. Very frugal. And indeed, we went the extra mile on that by going for the self-mending and cleaning charms, as well." 

I was, in point of fact, a little annoyed at the goblins for itemizing this bill, as it meant there was a whole paperwork trail of everything Harry now owned, and that included rather a few things I'd rather people didn't know about. 

"And the Sneakoscopes and bookbags? Why more than one expanded pouch?" His eyes bulged a bit. "And those MATERIALS!" 

I rolled my eyes. "Albus, he needs them. I've got a half dozen myself, and it was just easier as we were picking up mine to have the same done for him." 

"GRAPHORN hide!? Moke skin alone is expensive enough, but Graphorn? What ever possessed you to have pouches made out of two of the most expensive materials available to wizard-kind?!?" 

I leaned against a shelf, stroking book bindings as I couldn't look at him. "It's really a necessary expense, Albus. You know the boy, Harry gets into trouble completely without meaning to. He will be keeping most of his possessions in those pouches, especially while at school. Thus, to avoid losing a fortune in keepsakes, tools and materials it became necessary to ensure that a pouch would not be casually destroyed if one of his schoolmates flung a jinx at him. Graphorn hide is even tougher than dragons', and repels most spells." 

"It is, for that reason, very difficult, and consequently very expensive, to enchant." The Headmaster spoke in heavy, serious tones. "And for a full-featured, top of the line, multi-compartment pouch such as this, to say nothing of FOUR of them!!" 

"Oh, pish-tosh," I pish-toshed him, airily waving a hand. "You can count on it as some measure of recompense for that abusive childhood you gave him. Besides, it was necessary. But, as the spells on them are so solid, it was a once-in-a-lifetime expense, and it is over now. Harry's needs are met in that department, and someday his great grandchildren will be thankful for them. Besides, 'A wise man must be prepared to abandon his baggage many times in his life.' Harry has already had more than one destroyed out from under him. It will do him good to have the security of holding certain things close." 

Albus lay down the list and calmly folded his hands over it. "Could you at least explain why four of them? And why the combination with moke skin?" 

"Yes, certainly. I got him a number of pouches to aid in organization. Thus, books in one, potions in another, and so on." I shrugged, pulling out a book I found interesting. 

"With the size requirements and sorting charms you'd requested, that hardly seems necessary." I noticed his hands rather white about the knuckles and revised my earlier snap judgment that he was taking this calmly. 

Okay, yeah, you probably could fit a small van inside each of those pouches, provided you cut it up into small enough bits to fit past the entry hole. And, there was that extra option I'd insisted on, where when one put his hand in the pouch and thought of something, if it was in the pouch at all it would be right there in your hand, so no fumbling about. 

Still, I calmly shot back, "Necessary? Hardly. Desirable? Yes. The boy has never owned anything of his own before, and sadly that means he has yet to master that difficult yet life-saving art of putting things away properly and cleaning up after himself. After others? Well, you made certain he had that part mastered. But cleaning up after himself? He hasn't got that yet, and we will be performing drills and inspections to make sure he learns. Having him keep only appropriate things in their given pouches is the start of that." 

"The moke skin?" He prompted. 

I found an interesting page on the tome I had cracked open, and spoke in a somewhat distracted tone as I studied it. "As you well know moke skin is highly prized among wizards for moneybags and pouches, being able to shrink down to practically nothing until their owner actually needs something from inside them. Thus appearing and disappearing at his convenience, and being very difficult for thieves to locate or steal from. Harry needed this level of protection for his belongings, as much because of fans as of enemies. I won't have him robbed by grabby girls seeking for a souvenir." 

Albus sighed, and by the shuffling of papers and what I saw out of the corner of my eye, I could tell he was once more perusing that list. Fortunately, most of it was genuinely school related materials. 

"I can understand the astronomy sphere and lunaglobe, a portable potions lab of that magnitude is perhaps wasted at his current level of development, and a dagger of goblin silver surely is. But what I find most curious about this list are the fire crab, puffskein, kneazel and fwooper, as Harry already has a pet in the form of his owl, Hedwig." 

"Yes, I know." I returned, turning a page in the book. "However, Harry has to grow up sometime, and one of the best lessons for that is to take care of another living creature. He needed pets. He loves magic. And those are all fairly common, and useful, examples of magical pets." 

"Fire crabs are hardly common..." Albus began. 

"Oh! But they are!" I broke in. "At his social level anyway. Granted most poor folks are turned away by the special license required, but of them all that one is most valuable about teaching lessons he could only otherwise acquire in future classes on Care of Magical Creatures, and thus the best way to judge on his own whether or not to take that subject." 

Not to mention that the shell of the turtle-like creature was highly prized as a cauldron. And even if we ourselves were not so unscrupulous as to harvest it by killing off the animal deliberately, all pets die on their own eventually. 

All of those animals were valuable for one reason or another. The puffskein most of all, as the docile, cushion shaped (and it behaved much like a pillow also) animal was better than a kitten about loving youngsters, and Harry still very much needed large infusions of love. 

I noticed that Albus didn't choose to select that one for singling out alone. 

He also neglected to complain about the kneazel, as we both knew about the catlike creature's uncanny ability to detect unsavory or suspicious activity, and could guide their owners effectively in many situations. 

No, we both knew that Harry needed that sort of protection. And his kneazel kitten, Augustus (Gus, for short) loved him to death. 

My own kneazel, Belisarius, was bought at the same time and for much the same reasons. It took an instant liking to me and I needed one. We'd already picked up Crookshanks for Hermione, but she didn't know yet. 

She would soon. We'd be holding her birthday early this year so she could spend it with her muggle family, although few enough of them were pure muggles anymore. Still, the principle of family time counted. 

"So, Harry is now keeping a small menagerie of pets?" he asked. 

"No," I admitted cautiously. "We haven't the space for it. They are waiting to be delivered until we have a proper home, unfortunately." 

"Then the shops, at least, will accept their return and refund the money," he nodded, as if to himself. 

"So you'll blunt his education to save a few coins?" I asked, unconcerned. 

"I will do what is best for the boy!" he insisted. 

"Are you so sure that's for the best?" I asked, with lofted eyebrow. 

I had never, before this moment, seen Albus angry. He was now, rising out of his chair. "My judgment is not for idlers, the ignorant, vainglorious or status seekers to question! And certainly not for my subordinates to do so! I will decide what is best for Harry, just as I have always done!" 

In that moment I decided not to tell him of the book I carried in my pocket, the 'Tale of Harry Potter, Part One: The Tragedy' which implicated him most severely in its pages and spelled out Harry's treatment by the Dursleys in detail, always drawing it back to Albus who had put him there and kept him there and prevented anyone else from finding out what was going on. It even mentioned the man's spy doubtless informing him of all that went on there. 

It was poison to the man's career, worse that every word in it was both true and verifiable. Harry himself had been shocked by its contents, even after having written most of it himself from observations of Dursley memories in a pensieve. 

And, in order to be fair, he'd asked that we hold off on sending it to my publisher until we could confirm that was Dumbledore's intentions. But by his fiery insistence that only he had any right to be deciding what was good for Harry... no, I'd be adding that last sentence of his to the dedication of the book before I sent it off to be printed. 

I shrugged, turning toward the door of the office. "Then, I guess we have nothing more to speak of." 

"What of your visit to the Flamels?" he inquired, trying to stop my departure. 

"What of it?" I returned, unconcerned, not turning to face him. 

He attempted to put on that old grandfatherly look again. Trouble was I would never again be fooled by it, as I'd once seen the proud and haughty, uncaring manipulator of innocents hiding underneath. 

He truly didn't care in the least about the cost paid by Harry in his schemes. 

"I was hoping you could tell me what went on. Tea?" 

I restrained myself from surrendering to the urge to roll my eyes at his lame peace offering of a beverage I would never drink. "I arrived to the shouts of a man who felt abused by too many visitors. Really, Albus, you could have told me you'd been pestering him with gold diggers and distant relations all week long before you sent me there. How could you think they wouldn't spoil any chance of success?" 

"I had hoped..." 

"Then it was a vain hope." I cut him off. "Whatever you'd intended, all you did was create a situation in which that man would listen to no one." 

No one. True; but not nothing. The presence of his Stone being returned had been very persuasive. However, the Flamels and I were agreed to say nothing on it. They would disappear shortly and allow the world to think them dead, so that Albus Dumbledore would drop them from his schemes. 

It was the least I could do to help them, really. And they'd already keyed me in to the visitor portion of the wards of their next intended home, so I could drop by and pay them visits from time to time. 

We did have that couple decades of training to get to, after all. 

"Gilderoy," Dumbledore spoke to me sternly. "Since you have so abused my trust in this issue, I must insist you pay this bill out of your own funds." 

I gave him a nod. "I shall make certain that Harry knows that." And I made a note to add to our little book a mention that Dumbledore refused to pay even one knut toward the reestablishment of Harry after he was rescued from the very poverty to which Dumbledore had originally sent him (and thus was partially responsible for). 

Oh dear. 

What Dumbledore knew, Snape knew, and right now he had in his possession a list of all of our new defensive arrangements. On reflection, a paper trail was unlikely. In the muggle world it would be a certainty, but the two were at odds on so many issues and this was one of them. 

Parchment had long been viewed as precious. In the muggle world, industrial technologies had turned paper from a rare treasure into one of the cheapest materials around. But the same could not be said of parchment, which was what the wizarding world still largely used for important documents, receipts among them. 

They probably had charmed quills to do most of the work of accounting. From what I recalled of my various memories this was so. So this could be the only copy of the itemized list of our purchases. 

It probably was, in point of fact. 

I headed over to Dumbledore's desk and reached over to pick up the item in question, quite calmly Obliviating him with my wand held in my off hand behind my back as I bent over. 

Yes, just about anyone can be shot when they're off-guard and not expecting it. How else do you think Draco got a shot in on him? 

However, I obviously didn't put enough power into it, as the old man shot to his feet and drew his wand. Unfortunately for him, I was within arm's reach and simply used my martial arts to snatch it out of his hand, stun him, and then repeat the Obliviation, this time with far more force. 

And I didn't do much, as I feared that too much would cause the master Occlumens before me to find a blank spot in his mind and correct it, breaking through my charm. 

So, all I did was to remove his memory of certain items, and my casting the spells. He'd still recall most of the objects on that list, the clothes and potion supplies and so on, and that was by far the bulk of the cost. But not any of the sensitive, secret stuff we could be counting on to stay secret, as we might be relying on it to save our lives. 

Dumbledore awoke, having no memory of our short duel, and we said our goodbyes. Then I departed, folding and pocketing the note on my way out. 

I was also making a note to add to my final pre-publishing alterations to the book containing the story of Harry's early life, those interesting and yet horribly damning facts about Snape targeting Harry's parents for his Lord, thus killing them almost as surely as though he'd done the deed himself. 

And, how Albus had supported that abusive monster in his career of child abuse and endangerment, including said Harry Potter, ever after. 

Really, the issue here was not money. It was Dumbledore's callous abuse of someone who'd never done any harm to him (indeed, never meant any and who had loved the old bastard like a grandfather) then refusing to do a thing to make right all of what he'd personally mucked up in the first place! 

No, the more I learned, the less excuse there was for Dumbledore's actions regarding Harry. A note about how he had - quite illegally, stolen him as a child from his Godfather, the one man on Earth who had a RIGHT to raise Harry, also ought to be added to his list of crimes. 

Albus, as head of the Wizengamot, the magical court system, could have gotten Sirius a trial as easily as naming a date for it. The Aurors would have brought him in for it on time without batting an eyelash. The fact that he had NOT done so was reprehensible to say the least. 

I made a note to look in on the Potter's will, as I had no doubts at all that it had not been followed. And, if fanfic convention was to be any guide, Albus was one of the witnesses for it. 

If so, that fact was going to find its way into Harry Potter's book. 

As for myself, yes, I could pay the bill. It would hurt, but all I'd have to do to make up the loss was publish a few more books. I had a manuscript I was working on half-finished already, telling the full story of the rise of one Tom Riddle, including especially his half blood ancestry and his murder of his own father, as well as the imprisonment of the last pureblood of Slytherin's line. 

But there was a chapter on horcruxes still to write. 

I stopped by the Room of Requirement, in its version of the Room of Hidden Things, on my way out and calmly picked up Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem. I then popped directly over to the Ministry of Magic and bought the property that was the former Gaunt home - including the house and all its contents. 

It was, unsurprisingly, very inexpensive. 

From there I went to St. Mungos, where Sirius was still being held (and holding several of the nurses in turn). Obtaining permission to pop out with him on a day trip, we stopped by #12 Grimmauld Place where he keyed me into those protective enchantments and I promised to buy that place from him, too. 

Actually, I was starting to have cash flow problems, as much was flowing out but only a little was flowing in. So that's why I promised only to buy it in the future. On hearing this, however, he proclaimed he'd be glad to be rid of the cesspool of horrid memories and sold it to me for a single knut. 

I was glad to get it. 

Entering inside, I retrieved the locket, executed Kreacher and grabbed a copy of 'Secrets of the Darkest Art' for the horcrux creation spell detailed within it (and silently blessed that the Black's dark library had a copy). 

Returning Sirius to the hospital where he could cavort with the female staff members, I then dropped by the bank, found the will (a bit difficult, as it was magically disguised to prevent reading) discovered that everything there was even worse than my most horrible predictions, filled that information in on Harry's Life History, then visited my publisher to drop off the Harry Potter book before I retired to my own penthouse, where I put out the 'Do Not Disturb' sign and sucked down the memories of a curse-breaker. 

That part of me that was still the original Lockhart wanted to immediately pop over to Gringotts, hire a team of curse breakers, and send them to the Gaunt House with instructions to search for a golden box hidden under the rotting floorboards of the place, and protected by enchantments, explain that within that box was a ring with a horrible curse upon it, and ask them to solve the whole problem for me. That would certainly be the easiest thing. 

The trouble is, I wasn't that trusting. Not anymore. 

Griphook betrayed Harry, joining in on a scheme to rob the bank together, and then abandoning him in the middle of it, running away shouting 'Thieves!' after he'd gotten what he'd wanted. Actions which can be boiled down to "I'll get what I want then leave you to take all of the blame" constitute betrayals. 

Such actions do not build trust. 

So I wasn't going to be trusting a goblin any time soon. I wasn't quite to the point of declaring war on them, but all of those sappy fanfics where goblins were just waiting to shower love and blessings on anyone who was willing to accept and work with them were false. 

They were mean, petty, and just as willing to work for Voldemort as the most pureblooded of wizards. While people suffered, it was business as usual for the goblins, who made no complaints at all, and even prospered under the new management, going out of their way to secure its interests, as obedient as any Death Eater to the Dark Lord's commands. 

That put them very near to being an enemy to me. Very near indeed. 

My plan now was to acquire those necessary curse breaking skills myself, then apply that knowledge to first the uncovering, then the destruction, of each of the horcruxes in turn, as they became available. 

But! As I didn't feel like killing Harry (and curse Rowling for making him a horcrux too), I'd have to do that another way than simple gross destruction - and that way involved a careful study of the horcrux creation spell. 

It was simple, really. 

To make a horcrux a dark wizard had to first rip his own soul apart, so he had a fragment to emplace. Fair enough, I understood that, even though I was never going to go there. But it was the NEXT part that held my interest! The spell to infuse the ripped part of a soul into an object. 

That was the weak point, the exploitable loophole. 

It was simple, really. That spell already existed to move a fragment of a soul from a place in which it was already bonded (as the caster must, as anybody, have his soul made an integral part of him at birth) and break those bonds to transfer the separated fragment to another container. 

So, all I had to do to destroy a horcrux WITHOUT destroying the object it was made of was to adapt that second spell, the one to move a soul piece out of the originating body and into an object. My aim was simply to modify that and create a version to switch Tom's befouling essence from those irreplaceably valuable objects he'd hidden them within, to cheap, disposable ones that no one would miss when I destroyed them. 

MOVING the soul fragment was already an established bit of magic, including all of the tricky bits of breaking and reforging bonds. I just had to finagle a way to change targets from person -> object, to object -> object. 

And it didn't seem like it should be too hard. 

There need be no further tearing, in fact I was sure I didn't want it, as it was my intention to eliminate the entire soul fragment, not spread it around. 

The memories of the first curse-breaker turned out to be insufficient to unravel the spell to where I could do what I wanted to do with it. I was about to devote all of my time over the remaining week to this project when I caught sight of a bucket of large, hairy spiders out of the corner of my eye. 

Oh yeah. The transfigured marshmallows I'd asked Tonks for. Well, it was either use them or let them go to waste, and it really was better to use them. 

So, yes, I had time before I wholly devoted myself to the horcrux project. 

I had seen, on our vacation to Italy, an amazingly ugly business suit on our thrift store hopping. My first thought upon seeing it was that only an Addams would wear a suit like that. 

And that gave me such a great idea that I immediately resolved to buy it at once, and got it on the spot. 

Stripping out of my finery, I put on those dull duds and stood in front of the mirror long enough to fudge my features into an approximation of Gomez Addams, from the films. 

After all, Gilderoy was a celebrity, recognizable on sight, and I didn't want to sully his image of a famous figure of Light by going and doing anything even remotely Dark while wearing his face - and the plain truth of the matter was there were some things of that variety I just had to do. 

Liberally placing spiders all over my body, til I looked very much like a stand in for that initial scene in 'Raiders of the Lost Ark', body decoratively covered in big, hairy spiders, I apparated away. 

There was some shopping to be done in Knockturn Alley. 

Walking through the Leaky Cauldron with a huge Gomez-grin on my face, I even startled the wizards there with my spider-covered presence, getting reactions as bad as people dropping out of their seats. As I moved toward the Alley entrance one of my spiders scuttled up over my face. Grin never faltering, I plucked it up, kissed its hairy topside, and placed it back on my shoulder with a fond pat. 

Several among the witches swooned. 

Then it was more of the same as I strolled through Diagon Alley, with people shying away from me openly and mothers clutching their children behind them as I passed, all the while I was as gracious as a duke as I walked by. 

Creepy, but gracious. 

The slightly demented politeness was a good touch, I felt. 

Once I turned onto Knockturn Alley I could sense the people behind me were almost relieved. 

Just as I entered Borgin and Burke's a spider crossed my face again. This time I picked it up and took a bite out of the transfigured marshmallow, starting to chew just as the shopkeeper caught my eye. 

I offered him a piece. 

This seemed even to upset the imperturbable Burke slightly, although he hid it well as he declined. 

Crunching and grinning at the same time, I pointed to a half dozen dark arts objects, including that 'touch me and die' necklace Draco later used to try and assassinate Dumbledore, just to cover the fact that I was really there to purchase the Vanishing Cabinet. 

Because, really, why leave such a thing in enemy hands? 

Burke swallowed noisily (and did I detect a hint of nervousness? But Why? He dealt with worse, or just as bad, regularly I'm sure) as he rang up my purchases and asked, "Name, sir?" 

"Gomez Addams!" I shouted with the movie character's cheerful pride. 

Burke nodded. "Yes, sir. Your family still has credit with us. I shall deduct the price from that, after deducting your preferred customer discount, of course. Do you want everything delivered to the same address?" 

"Of course!" I didn't let my act slip, in spite of panicking inside. "All but those two," I waved idly to the cabinet and necklace. "Those I'll want shrunk and gift wrapped to carry out personally. In fact, why don't you gift wrap it all, my dear fellow?" 

Burke cleared his throat nervously. "What... paper do you wish, sir?" 

I seemed to consider this for a moment. "Human skin would be too formal, I think. Aha!" I snapped my fingers, as if coming to a decision. "Just the thing! Tie it all up in mummy wrappings, won't you, dear boy?" 

"Yes, sir." He gave a small bow, unusually polite, I thought. "Is there to be a card?" 

"And flowers." I pointed to him as though he'd been missing something important. "A stinking corpse lily and two dozen flytraps, if you please, along with four dozen dead, black roses." 

It wasn't what I wanted to do, but it was what the act demanded, and this would be a bad time to run screaming off into the night. So I held the grin on my face and just played up to my role. 

"What shall the card say, sir?" He asked in unusual obsequiousness. 

Another spider crossed my face, although this one just scuttled over quickly to the other side, so I ignored it as I posed in thought. 

"Happy Anniversary!" I cried out, thinking that was nicely generic. But his quill didn't move, still waiting expectantly, so I finished in a softer tone. "To my beloved Morticia, the sweetest, loveliest, most disturbing wife any man could ask for." 

Now the quill began to scratch, and the man made slight nodding motions that I had lived up to (or was that down to?) his expectations on this. 

Now hopefully if there were any true Addams on this world that would include their own Gomez and Morticia and they'd just... aw, heck! Who was I kidding? The moment I got out of this shop I was going to revert to my old face, burn the suit, hide the cabinet, and never EVER go anywhere near this idea again! 

And that's just what I did. 

Although, when I got back to my apartment, sloughing off the transfigured marshmallows into their bucket where they belonged, I found Dora there looking around, apprehensive. 

Already back in my own face and attire, I asked her, "What is it, Dora?" 

Not looking at what I was doing (she was busy checking under furniture and the like), she answered, "Something happened to the bucket of live spiders I got to serve as models for the transfiguration you asked me to do." 

She held up an unopened bag of marshmallows. 

I fainted. 

OoOoO 

It took me four days and absorbing Lockhart's complete collection of curse breaker memories before I was able to do it, but I DID adapt that spell (which would take a bit of soul, already infused into its parent body by birth, then move that soul bit to another object and infuse it there) to take a soul bit out of one object and into another, changing which one was the horcrux. 

I was a little weird by then, having absorbed waaay too many memories in far too short a time period, but I did succeed in transferring those soul bits of Tom's trapped in the locket and diadem from those priceless relics and into a pair of thrift store coffee mugs. 

Ugly ones, too. 

Two Avada Kedavra curses later and the world was short by two horcruxes. And believe me, I WANTED to kill Voldemort, so desire was no problem! I even used Pettigrew's wand to do it, as no one would be surprised to find those curses on the wand of a convicted Death Eater. 

One quick trip to the hovel of the last of the pureblood descendants of Slytherin, one golden box retrieved (not so hard a task as I had feared - as Tom had only been roughly late teens when he'd hidden it there, so his spell work, while impressive for his age, was not so hard to beat). Box opened, ring retrieved, soul swapping spell performed, and a third ugly coffee mug got an Avada Kedavra curse upon it, ending roughly half of the total horcrux list. 

I was even able to remove the nasty, ugly, really bad curse from the ring, seeing as how I already knew it was there (and who had placed it - after all, it HAD to be Tom, as he'd been wearing it before and got no ill effects). 

I even removed the secondary and backup curses. Why not? 

But, as Rowling had said that Nagini only became a horcrux after Pettigrew had started to help the Dark Idiot return, that meant there were only six at present, so we were down by exactly half. 

The next was Harry. 

I had to laugh, a demented cackle of an overstrained brain. It was all so easy! I didn't even have to do a THING! By now I understood that I'd never had to do this at all to save Harry from being Voldemort's horcrux. 

It was simple, really. The process of horcrux creation goes as follows: a dark witch or wizard commits an act of murder to rend apart their soul, tearing off a fraction of it. Then, as it is the nature of souls to self repair, they had to cast a second spell to take that fragment out of their bodies and put it in something else, something they'd want to hide at some great distance from themselves lest that implanted fragment migrate home to their bodies and ruin the spell's terrible and costly protection. 

Going over that again, more simply. You create a soul fragment within yourself, then take that out and put it somewhere else. 

Harry already HAD a soul fragment inside of his body! He had his own, whole and complete, plus a bit of Voldemort's existing as a separate thingy (which could never join or fuse to Harry's, as it belonged to someone else entirely). 

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes, the cackling madness. What else? Oh! Right! All Harry had to do to be free of Voldemort's spirit's influence, cut off their connection forever, and cease being a horcrux for his parents' killer was to cast the horcrux creation spell himself. 

I am NOT talking about the 'commit a murder' part! Harry already had a separate bit of soul fragment tucked away in there, no point in making another when all you want is to get rid of the first. 

The horcrux creation spell existed to take a bit of soul fragment out of your body and put it in something else. You see how simple that is? Harry's main problem was that he had a bit of soul fragment in him that he didn't want. If he cast that spell it would be expelled forever. 

It would take that fragment of Voldemort out of him and put it in something else, making that object a horcrux instead of Harry. I'd suggest into a toilet paper roll or some other thing that we could use to graphically illustrate our disrespect for the Dark Idiot. 

A Dark Bedpan, perhaps? 

And it was past time that I go link up with the Granger family to go back for another week of stolen vacation time. 

OoOoO 

Immediately upon their return from their first week of time travel vacation, the extended Granger family had put everything out on the porch, and then proceeded to give their home the most thorough cleaning it'd ever received, all working together to banish even the slightest trace of a memory of dust or spots on the carpet. Magic did help a little bit in some cases, but they didn't know many of those spells yet, and so it was good, old elbow grease, water and cleansers that got most of the work done. 

Afterwards, they started on the garden. 

Sometime during this they had purchased a second bed and dresser for Harry, and divided Hermione's closet so they could share. In fact, though on some level they knew their current pasts were false, they were doing all they could to force reality to fit their memories. 

They even got Harry an appropriate toothbrush of the appropriate color and put it in the spot I'd claimed for him. 

It was a little scary, really. 

I had started off the week intending to visit every evening, in hopes that would keep charging whatever it was Harry needed with that blood magic thing of his. But, I had gotten so busy that that had fallen off my charts. 

Also, I may have gone ever so slightly mad putting so many memories inside of my head. But at least there were fewer horcruxes in the world. 

So it was with some surprise to me to return there and learn of a screaming match between Ted and his wife over the issue of her having taken the kids in for some cosmetic magic touch ups, fixing Hermione's oversize front teeth for one, although Miranda's chin and Moria's ears, their worst features, were also looking far better than they used to. 

They'd gone from nice but ever so slightly clownish to downright good looking in one simple change apiece. 

Good for them. 

Harry's scar was also slightly less prevalent, so it looked like it had been a whole family thing. Although Ted had apparently blown his top about it. It wasn't a money issue (I knew, as I offered to pay any costs just trying to stop their argument), but that they'd used magic. 

I'd always thought it odd that Hermione, who loved magic to death and was a good person in general, seemed to choose magic over her family. Okay, so magic was fun and it was useful, but family was family. 

Why not have both? 

Unless, as it seemed now, it was her family that had forced her to choose between them. That was so often a bad thing for parents to do, as so often their children's choices surprised and horrified them. 

It was pure speculation on my part until now. The only hint of evidence had been Hermione assertion that her parents wouldn't let her fix her teeth magically. I'd never thought that made any sense, but wasn't about to argue, as parents did have the right to lay down rules like that. 

I just would have reserved any rules I made for something important. Getting in between a woman and her appearance meant you'd pretty much always lose, and losing out on a Parental Prerogative demand meant that parental relationship you'd based that demand on would be damaged. 

As witnessed by Hermione getting her teeth fixed magically at her first opportunity, and later on having a crappy relationship with her parents, to the point of wiping out their minds so they WERE no longer her parents! 

Frankly, I'd never have given her a choice between be 'a bushy haired, beaver toothed bookworm who obeys me' or 'a merely bushy haired bookworm who might be interesting to boys'. No, that's a battle you'd ALWAYS lose! So never make it. Only draw the line on important stuff, basics, 'No sex before marriage, no drugs, no alcohol, no tattoos, etc - in short no messing yourself or your future up' and even then lay out your case so she can agree on it. 

Pick your battles. 

It wasn't like there was anything inherently, morally wrong in looking good. It could be, and often was, taken to extremes, nurturing both vanity and pride (which were both sins, and so to be avoided). 

But there wasn't any inherent virtue in ugliness, either. 

All girls want to be beauties, even the ones that haven't got any real hope of it. No, make that especially those that had no real hope of it! 

But the battle Ted apparently wanted to fight was one where he preferred to use mundane methods to magical ones, even where there was no mundane way to correct a problem (such as Hermione's oversize teeth), a stance that had never made sense to me, except perhaps as a control issue (ie, this is the way I understand things, therefore the route you will choose). 

But I think the real source of their argument was that Miranda had once been on his side, only now she was pitching for the other team. 

Nothing I could do about that. 

And, demented lunatic though I was, I knew better than to try. 

Miranda had her own magic and magical memories now, and it would be cruel indeed to ask her to give them up. That she was acting as eager a convert as Hermione had been was hardly a surprise. She was her daughter's mother, and they shared many traits in common. More now than ever before. 

But Ted was, just as plainly, feeling his position in the family challenged. 

Sigh. 

Well, that was something that lay within their own power to resolve, the best I could do would be to give them what help I could. And, considering that I'd very nearly lost my mind so offering proper and appropriate counsel was out, that help just could possibly be in the form of another week of vacation! 

Even Ted was eager for that (work had been stressful lately) so we all suited up and headed out! 

OoOoO   
Author's Notes:   
Thank you all for your kind support. 

Sadly, my SI character here is finding that the issue with Ted is proof that, just like Real Life, sometimes you solve problems only to cause others. And with Gomez? Heh, sometimes your perfect disguise isn't. 


	10. Chapter 10

My Gilded Life   
Chapter Ten 

by Skysaber   
based on a challenge forwarded by Lionheart 

OoOoO 

The kids Patronus charms were, as might be expected, not very good at all. So, it was not a tropical vacation site we ended up selecting. 

But there was loads you could learn in the USA. 

Everybody had enjoyed their second trip to Diagon Alley. Moria had her new school books (Harry and Hermione already had theirs) and supplies, including a brand new wand, with a dragon heartstring core - twin to Hermione's. 

Their mother had also purchased a wand, and though it was another dragon heartstring, it was of a far different animal than her daughters'. She'd smiled and made an excuse to Ollivander about having left her wand in Italy. But no one truly knew if the old man believed her or not. Not that it mattered in the end, she had her own wand! 

The portable potion labs they had sprung for were also quite remarkable. The basic set required by Hogwarts was a 'you can get by on this... mostly' only alright if you didn't venture too far afield, or have anything too difficult in mind, and even then you were supposed to have the school's resources on hand to get any good use out of it. But we'd already passed the point where to fully use or improve our skills we needed better. 

Hey, you like what you're good at, and so far Potions was the most developed subject any of us had. 

Rather remarkable, that. 

Our next endeavor was going to be, naturally, absorbing those memories of the Marauder's Transfiguration classes (and certain other interactions for which she'd been present) that I'd gotten from McGonagall... er, Minnie. This would be valuable to us in several ways, not the least of which was increased knowledge of Harry's parents, of which we all were growing rather fond, but also vital knowledge covering yet another core subject of Hogwarts study. 

Every little bit helps, and I was determined to erase my incompetence. 

The procedure with the Jello and everything was the same as before, with different flavors for everyone this time around lest they choose to think those had some special significance. But otherwise things went remarkably like the first time we'd all done this sharing of memories. 

Even down to Ted going off on his own, renting a boat and fishing. 

After the experience, all of our previous Marauder Memories were more complete, and instances that we couldn't understand before made sense, as we had more material to judge by, filling in gaps or holes. 

However, without the surprise of how wonderful were the Marauders (even Pettigrew - I was still shocked over that), there was more comparative delight in our newly acquired Transfiguration knowledge, and we immediately set about to test it, changing all sorts of stuff into all sorts of other stuff. 

Two things this did that surprised us, but ultimately shouldn't have: One was that our newly increased understanding of Transfiguration sent us all surging leagues ahead in our study of animagus transformations. Actual achievement of our goals of becoming animagi now seemed something we might do before the summer was out, when it had seemed a dim and distant thing earlier. 

The other was that, those three of us who were metamorphs found our skills in that department enormously improved, with better control, easier results, improved holding power, the whole deal. 

This was a good thing. A VERY good thing to our minds! 

All of these new skills caused us great joy. 

Even Tonks was surprised at her own increase in morphing skill, and voiced a complaint about her own previously shoddy study habits, wishing that she hadn't just coasted through Minnie's class the first time, barely getting sufficient grades for her aim of entering the Auror program. 

The Aurors. 

Once more, I knew more obscure details about stuff than I knew what to do with, and one of the ancient aims for founding the Auror corps was to stamp out the use of Blood Magic - yes, the same stuff that Dumbledore said protected Harry. 

You see, it had a nasty reputation. One it well deserved, it must be said, as most blood magic was icky, icky stuff. 

And the reasons for that were, well... ignorance as much as anything. 

Curse Breakers had to know a great deal about the most obscure forms of magic in order to do their jobs with any reliability. They were actually one of the few professions officially allowed to study such ancient and horrid things as Blood Magic, all in the course of learning how to destroy those few relics that once hated art left behind. 

So, having absorbed Lockhart's entire collection of curse breaker memories, I knew probably as much as any man living about it. 

And... it was a sad, sad tale indeed. 

Like most forbidden things, there was both a tempting benefit to be gained if you submerged your morals and indulged in the practice, and a terrible price to be paid. Also, in this case, there was a very real danger even in success as well, since no one seemed to know beforehand who would die from even a successful use of one of those ancient Blood Magic spells or rituals. 

However, the evil in this case was not so much inherent to the art as in the way they'd used it, and how in their limited understanding they chose to pay the required price. 

A child's jumprope can be a terrible thing if you run around strangling people with it. Tools were not so much evil, as what was done with them. 

Blood magic could do things no other art could accomplish. Some things many would call terrible, yet others that none could fault. The protection Lily gave her only child was one based on both love and blood. She must've deliberately invoked the effect and knowingly sacrificed her own life also, yet her act destroyed the Dark Lord and was celebrated by all of magical Britain. 

Besides, arresting her postmortem for knowing and using a forbidden spell was hardly in anyone's best interests. 

Voldemort had also used blood magic. Once (that I knew of) to seal the entry to that chamber reached by the cave near the sea, and where he'd hidden one of his horcrux, before Regulus stole it. And one other time, when he used Harry's 'blood of the enemy' to create a new body for himself. Other uses by Riddle were not only possible, but likely. 

Yet, strangely, I was actually guilty of the practice myself, though I did not know it at the time I'd done it. 

The Grangers were too, for that matter. 

Our simple transfusions, using muggle equipment, actually came close to the functioning core of some of those ancient blood magic rituals. The trappings were entirely different, but magically it functioned the same way as some of those ancient, forbidden rituals. 

I hadn't known that at the time we'd done it. 

One major reason Blood Magic was abhorred was because of the price that must be paid to invoke it, always in blood, sometimes heartblood, others not. And in quite a few cases the magic required transferring blood between two people. 

The sad thing about it all was that the only way those ancient wizards who had first delved into this branch of the art could think of to move blood from one person's veins to another required sacrificing the original person, or at least doing them a grave injury. 

And without blood typing they hadn't known why so many people died doing it, even from successful transfusions, or 'rituals' as they called them. 

I had no idea how many spells and rituals were dark and hard to perform   
because the magic world didn't know about transfusions and blood typing. They based those arts on murder and bloodshed because they hadn't known about needles and syringes. (Granted, at the time they came up with this art muggles were still using leeches, and those would digest enough of the blood to render it useless for rituals.) 

Oh, it must be said, some of those guys who'd come up with this were sick bastards, twisted enough to have known and not CARED. But.. this stuff had been forbidden LOOOONG before even the muggle world knew about blood types. And, being both in disuse and very hated, virtually unknown outside of a few old grimories, no one had thought to update it when muggles came up with an answer solving those difficulties that had made the art so terrible. 

Blood magic had a well deserved (aye! WELL deserved!) reputation as one of the sickest arts that anyone could perform. But much of the icky stuff that'd earned that terrible reputation was entirely and totally unnecessary!!! 

Much, but not all, so there was still quite a bit of that art worth avoiding. But I wouldn't be surprised to find that there were quite a few options available with that little bit of muggle knowledge. 

One of the things Blood Magic was best at, indeed, it was the only form of magic that could do it at all (and thus a major reason for it being hated and reviled) was in stealing magical gifts, things like being a parcelmouth, or an empath... or a metamorph! 

Well, we had a friendly metamorph on hand (or three, but neither Harry or I could give blood to the Grangers, and we didn't know yet if Tonks couldn't) and... 

As the last book showed, it didn't matter much if Harry could be disguised, if he was known to be running around with some people who were recognizable that alone would mark him. 

So... if our friendly Granger family could be metamorphs also... 

On that thought I very quietly blood types Dora, but it turned out she was another strong A, so no giving to the family who were all Bs. 

Shucks! And it would have been so useful, too! 

OoOoO 

On our vacation, trying to settle my disturbed mind, I learned something. 

I had underestimated something, my own fame, really. People LIKED Gilderoy Lockhart, and those things I'd been doing with his face and name had only increased that markedly. More people who hadn't liked him before now grew converted as they heard of those extra exploits, and those who'd liked him before now felt great confirmation and support for those feelings, and so now liked him even more. 

And, the story had just gotten around rather famously about how I'd hired a private tutor on the strength of Snape's hatred for her alone. I'd thought it a marvelous joke, but as the crowd of eager Hogwarts graduates came off the train, some number of them mentioned in their applications for posts that Snape had hated their guts. And, they were being met and considered by people who were often my fans. 

As a direct result, MORE students began to get hired on the strength of having been hated or abused by Snape, to such an extent that a handful of Slytherins even began to consider lying about it and claim hatred by their head of house in hopes of achieving a good position, as they were seeing all the time their former rivals from other houses getting good positions on the strength of that singular recommendation. 

Now the adults of this world had often had Snape as a classmate, and either liked or hated him. Those that hated him would hate those whom he liked, and the reverse was true as well. So certain pairings up began to happen, where those who opposed Snape and his ideals found good apprentices and workers among those applicants he despised, and those who supported him often began to pair up as well. 

And, as strange as it may seem, the pairing up of two like-minded individuals had better results, more often that not, than simply choosing to hire by OWL or NEWT scores. 

In a strange sort of way, this began to work for the magical world. 

However, it turned out my own worst estimates had nothing to do with how bad my fame had actually grown - in the muggle world! 

This came at me a bit by surprise, as the first I'd heard of it, it was from a camera crew from a local television station that had tracked me down at the dude ranch where I was staying with the Grangers, asking for an interview. 

The books and manga I'd prepared were flying off the shelves at an unheard of rate, unbelievable to the present world's publishing houses. The reporter lady offered to pay any price that was reasonable in return for an interview. 

I grinned, still half mad and getting a mischievous thought. 

My price was this: the loan of her camera crew for one week. Her station would pay for all of their salaries, upkeep, etc as usual, along with enough raw film to keep us rolling for that time, all of the permits and so on, plus development costs for said film. But everything we filmed belonged to me. 

There were a few protections against 'gotcha!s' in there, but that was the nuts and bolts of it. 

The lady reporter got on the phone and off of it two minutes later. Her boss had agreed to the deal - some guys down in accounting had crunched the numbers a bit and said this actually cost them less than they'd already been prepared to pay. 

Well and good, everyone was satisfied with this unusual arrangement. 

It was all I could do to not cackle and rub my hands together in glee as we conducted the half hour interview with the lady - who stuck around afterward to see what we were going to do with her camera crew. 

I had an idea. 

A most terrible, excellent, wonderful, nasty idea! 

We were going to film Raiders of the Lost Ark. 

It was NEARLY within these people's present abilities, they'd just never done it. Not had the creative energy, I supposed. 

I had the experience of dozens of curse breakers, guys who ventured into tombs, braved traps, and gathered treasures. Sets would be no problem, as between my know-how and six wands all skilled at Transfiguration, they'd not only be accurate, they'd cost us nothing! 

Costumes would cost us nothing, too. We just had to do it when the muggles weren't looking (and stunning and Obliviation made that easy!) 

I was a martial artist of considerable skill and talent. Plus, I'd seen the films before so I knew what character I'd be emulating, so I could do a credible, heck, an excellent Dr. Jones! And my near Multiple Personality Disorder from having absorbed waaay too many memories not yet resolved now came in as a positive boon! Seeing as how I'd effectively been people who acted like him naturally, down to that wide, cocky grin. 

Casting the rest of the family was easy. 

Ted became the French Archeologist, our main antagonist. This wasn't hard, as it was the largest other male role, and he spoke fluent French, plus he'd loved to vacation in that country so could pull off a Frenchman act fairly well. And (better yet) he had acting experience! He'd done Shakespeare in college, which was a big part of how he'd wound up meeting his wife. 

Anyone who could do Brutus would have no problem with this part! 

Miranda also had acting experience, obviously, as she'd first met her husband doing it. So, she pretty much had to handle our next main role, which was the big bodied and cheerful Egyptian Archeologist, except we recast the role as that of a Proper English Lady who happened to be an archeologist in Egypt so as not to strain her acting skills unduly. 

Besides, and more to the point, Egypt was one of those Muslim countries that requires its native women to wear the full head-to-toe 'hiding under a sheet' getup, and it would have inhibited her acting ability unduly to be fully concealed behind the veil. And easier for my part, as well, not to have her thus, as otherwise it would be too much like acting alongside Cousin It from the Addams family. 

Brrr! Just scary! 

For our female lead... well, it hadn't been acted all that well the first time. Pretty much all you'd need to do as well would be to be emotional and female and remember your lines. Dora would do fine for us there. 

It took a bit of juggling to cast parts for the kids, who all wanted to be involved. But it wasn't hard to give them small, undemanding parts here or there, mostly as the English Lady's proper but brainy English daughters who helped and assisted with her research. 

Harry could even borrow a bit from the part of Short Stuff in the second movie to be piloting the get away plane in the initial jungle chase scene. 

After that, all we'd need was a museum curator (easily enough performed by Dora using her metamorph abilities, who could also do the part of the girl in class with 'Love You' painted on her eyelids) and one Nazi torture specialist - a part which our lady reporter was happy to take! 

Grant us some extras (which the dude ranch and a neighboring reservation were both happy to provide) and we were already filming that afternoon! 

That evening I'd be dropping into my pensieve with a couple of magic pens, one to record the dialog and one to write down the soundtrack, as I dredged up from memory and watched Raiders all over again. 

Heck! I'd even send the score off to the London Philharmonic Orchestra to see if they'd be willing to do it for us. Why not? 

A remake is always less hard to do than an original, and that was perfectly true in this case as I knew exactly what I wanted to do. We did not do this as professionals would, which made perfect sense as none of us were actors by profession, and especially not filmmakers! 

But we had enough of the various specialties to make it work out alright. 

The initial scene, that first tomb Jones raids on film, set in a jungle was easy enough to do, as I ran over to a nearby cave and got cracking, giving us a functional tomb within moments. It wouldn't last, seeing as how it was all transfigured out of raw sticks and stone, but I was no longer quite so much a transfiguration novice so it would last a couple of days, which was plenty long enough for our purposes. 

The hardest part was getting the camera crew settled in their places and ready to film as I recited lines I knew by heart, bypassed traps I'd built myself based on the original movie ones (plus a few more I couldn't resist adding, based on curse breaker experiences 'I' had had), encountered spiders (transfigured ones this time for sure!) and 'lost' three guides from the dude ranch to the various perils as they 'died' to show the audience how dangerous it all was. 

Then, get chased through a bit of jungle by spear-wielding natives, on to my getaway plane. 

Everything we needed was right there on hand or instantly available (planes are surprisingly easy to transfigure - much easier than pigs anyway) so even with all of the hassles of being novices and having to do some scenes several times (or even more often) we had suitable footage in stock that first day. 

Then came the respectable teacher bit, with the museum curator interaction and the guys from the army in to tell us the real mission of the whole movie. We got that done in one take, even. 

We were really going by Hong Kong rules here, where films are done under budget and in a hurry, even if they are lacking a little polish in parts. 

Then again, Hong Kong's best made Hollywood's finest... well, opinions varied according to preference as to which was best, but they were close. And the worst of Hong Kong's films faults are, fairly often, in sets and other costly accouterments which we had to spare! 

The two guys coughed up by the dude ranch to serve as our army types were even both former military, so there wasn't even terribly much acting in their roles, they just did what they were accustomed to do. 

There were a lot of arcane details to do with directing all of this stuff normally, trying to get the perfect camera angles and so on, but for me, for this, that was the easiest part! As I'd already seen the original movie, I knew which angles to take which shots at, so we had no need for the multiple cameras filming for just the right angle to get each scene the most visually stunning way possible. 

Heck, with the now-multiple accomplished painters and artists and whatnot in among my pool of memories, I had a fair amount of expertise on how to frame a shot in there on my own! 

And it was no trouble at all for Tonks to act out the ditsy and distracted curator (who was, in our case, a female role, seeing as... how did she put it? Oh! 'You can change what bits there are, but you don't get nothing new, or lose what's already there' - so a female metamorph was always going to be a female, regardless of morphing, a fact I found interesting). 

No, the hardest bits about this were getting the camera crew to keep up with us, but they were pros too, in their way, and seemed to figure out what we wanted soon enough - not everything had to be a head shot! 

But several of them had degrees in this, and those had covered potential for film. They weren't all just news. No, they were a talented bunch of boys, even if we did have to secretly resort to mild Sonorus charms to get the sound to work out right, seeing as we didn't have a proper boom guy (reporters always expecting to be able to shove the microphone right in your face). 

But, perversely, not having to avoid catching the boom mike in their shots, filming went even easier. 

The scenes in Tibet were a bit more tricky than the others done before that, as we had to end up reworking most of it, seeing as how we lacked a large store of stocky Tibetans on hand to do the backdrop properly. 

So it became a Chinese coastal club instead, as we'd found a Chinese tour group wandering nearby and dragged them in to our film. That turned into a far larger fight scene than seen in the original, as a couple of those old guys turned out to be practicing martial artists of fair skill. 

And, well, we just had to include that. 

But, dude ranchers to serve as our Nazis, and the lady reporter to lead them as the terrible (and yet sexy) officer and interrogation specialist, a few guns loaded with blanks, all transfigured out of random junk, and we filmed! 

Oh! Boy did we film! 

There was a regrettable lack of ordinary safety apparatus they'd normally have on hand for these kind of things, and we were far more rough and tumble than most American producers would like on set, as choreographing the fights proved to be difficult so the dude ranchers and Chinese mostly winged it, picking up bruises and contusions while doing so. 

But nobody minded, in fact they were thrilled! Most of them were happy to have roles whose main job was to get punched, kicked, shot or maimed realistically, and unlike a real punching bag, they were getting paid pretty good for doing it! 

By our third day of this the TV studio wouldn't leave us alone, and had sent several extra crews to film 'the making of' this glorious hit, an unparalleled work of the filmmaking art - Well, at least they were happy calling it that. 

I was just having fun as much as anything. 

We'd just finished up with our Cairo scenes when our week ran out. I was all ready to pack it in, tired and exhilarated from a whole load of fun, but I was met with the disbelieving stares of everyone else involved. 

Wasn't I going to finish? 

Well, I explained that our time with the film crew was now up. 

The station volunteered to re-up the agreement, all the film crews we could want in exchange for sole rights to the 'making of' footage they'd already taken, including some casual interviews with the cast. Not only that, but we'd also (I didn't know this, having dodged the phone all week) been getting a raft of calls from people who wanted to invest in the film as backers and from outfits that wanted to bid on exclusive distribution rights. 

I was frankly amazed. 

But perfectly willing to continue to film. After all, that was fun. So, with those necessary details put to rest behind us, we took another week and finished things up at the same rapid pace we'd started. 

The hardest part now was sneaking away to do our sets for the city of Tanis, as transfiguring a proper Egyptian city, then burying it, then starting to dig it back out again, took a little of our time and by then it was hard to get any privacy. But we were swarmed with eager extras to work the site for us as our Nazi's team of excavators, once it was completed. 

Heck, I think we startled a few actual archeologists who came to help on the site by how accurate it all was. But hey! I had the memories, why not use em? It was actually easier to transfigure copies of real stuff rather than think up fakes, so our heiroglyphs were even authentic, as were the tales and prayers they told, except for all of the 'here lies the ark' stuff. 

Of course, our most intricately detailed set, the Well of Souls, got pretty badly smashed up during filming, causing not a few of those gentlemen to nearly die of apoplexy. 

A few wax dummies got killed here or there, carved apart by plane rotors or burned by divine fire. We had to do some real skullduggery to get the cast and crew convinced we were faking that last action scene, the one where the fire of God from His ark kills all of the Nazis, when we actually used magic to do all of those effects. 

But the flamethrowers and whatnot we rigged up to make them THINK we faked it were all pretty involved. Heck, between the flamethrowers, mirrors, searchlights, smoke... they could even have worked, they just wouldn't have done as well, I'm thinking, especially since we got actual ghosts from Hogwarts to play the parts of those spirits set free during the fiery destruction. Nearly Headless Nick even got his own moment of snarking at the camera with his head nearly pulled off. 

Pressed to explain that point, I clamped my lips together and claimed 'trade secret', and actually got away with it! 

A few memory charms here or there to clean up our mistakes when folks had actually noticed something was wrong, or caught us transfiguring equipment or costumes or charming fires to move about and the like, and we were done! 

The biggest job of cleanup was in concealing how, instead of spending hours each day in makeup, everybody got ready with a few wand flicks. But Miranda and her two daughters did land additional screen credits as makeup artists. 

Two weeks of actual shooting was not a record for Hong Kong action movies. Some had been done in half that time, complete with martial arts scenes. 

Trailers for our own little version of Raiders were actually being shown to film audiences before the shooting was finished! Public excitement for the film was at a hitherto unseen peak already, just from those thirty second blurbs showing in theaters now worldwide. 

It was being taken as THAT exciting! 

I guess their entertainment really was that bland before. Hey, their MUSIC was boring and toneless enough that the soundtrack was already a real hit. 

They'd never even had ELVIS here! So music was... no, not advanced. 

Post-production would take about three weeks before it hit the theaters, but that was not my problem. Actual professionals were scrambling over each other in their eagerness to handle it. I, being somehow the director/producer of this whole thingamabob, had to look at stuff and give opinions at places (and even fix up a few errors here or there by transfiguring bits of film to show what I really wanted or needed them to, then transferring those images to new stock via muggle means before the transfigured pictures faded, and I had to do those 'rolling map overlaid by flying aircraft' scenes myself - and would you believe they couldn't do rolling credits? Only flash past one card at a time) but overall things were... 

Well, let's put it this way, somehow someone got the bright idea to shield me from all of the real headaches involved in this, and leave me to the creative stuff; which was a good thing, because if I'd had to deal with all of the calls and boring meetings and nasty bureaucratic stuff I would've walked away and left them with an unfinished and unfinishable film. As I was the one holding all of the contracts of the actors and actual footage of the movie there was no way they could've completed it without my cooperation. 

So it was a good thing they'd taken that load off of my shoulders, ensuring that once we had an actual film it could make it out into theaters with all of the legal bases covered. Some very talented people got assistant director and assistant producer slots in the credits for all of that work on their part, but there was no way I was going to mind! They'd earned it! 

Still, after two weeks of very intense filming our whole little family was ready for a vacation from our vacation, and we spun back that extra week to go back to the boring, humdrum, ordinary routine of being British citizens and ordinary folks, for the most part. 

I got to deal with Fudge chasing me around, wanting to heap awards all over me again, for magical world stuff I'd practically forgotten by then. 

Oh, don't worry. They were all too glad to remind me. 

But there is an old saying 'a change is as good as a rest', and by the time we got done with our very intense filming I was almost happy to deal with Fudge and the magical world's concerns again. 

OoOoO 

On getting back to Merry Old England I looked in on Sirius only to find that he was off making preparations to help Remus deal with his little 'furry problem' - so I hung around long enough to Obliviate the wolf form down to nothing. 

Simply, lycanthropes in Rowling's world had two minds, the human and the beast, struggling against each other for dominance. 

Well, it ought to be easier on Remus' human mind if its animal opponent was a vegetable, and effectively lobotomizing the wolf part of him was not only fun, it was easy! So, even if he did continue to transform, he'd lay down drooling instead of being a danger to himself or anyone. 

And, as was proven in the case of Fenrir Greyback, the less you struggled against the beast within the less those transformations hurt or exhausted you. So, with the wolf mind effectively brain dead, but the human half just fine, I was expecting Remus to have to struggle less. 

I also left them with a dose of Wolvesbane potion to use on the following night, just to see what happened with that. Because, you see, a potion for allowing the human brain to take control of the wolf during a transformation, in spite of the wolf mind's objections... well, it could lead to good things if he managed to learn how to do that without a potion. It was by no means certain that he'd learn to do it, but with the wolf mind effectively gone and a dose or two of the potion to show Remus what it felt like so he'd know what he was trying to achieve... again, it could lead to good things. 

Then I skipped on over to Hogwarts to move along some other plans. 

Raiding the Potions classroom and taking with me all of Snape's old notes and school books was easy, he'd already left the castle for the summer, and I knew I could put these into good hands. The Grangers especially would love them. Well, except for the dark curses. But that part I could study to create counters for, as I knew that DEs would be using them! 

But what I was really there after was the research material Tom had used, and in a very short time I had found it, Salazar Slytherin's secret information network. 

It was simple. In the prefect quarters of the Slytherin dormitory there were several images of snakes, obviously. Well, hidden among the more readily apparent ones was a small silver one embedded into the room designs in a very non-obvious place. You had to really search to find it. 

But that one, unlike all of the others, spoke when you addressed it in snake language. And, if you spoke to it in such a way as to convince it that you had the appropriate qualities, namely pure blood and naked ambition, it gave you clues on how to find another small, silver snake embedded elsewhere, after promising hints of power and those other things that serve as bait to lure ambitious people into doing an incredible amount of work and study. 

The trail of these was really quite amazing, as each one of these was placed to make you prove you truly had no respect for rules in order to chase down the chain of them. They were scattered all over, one in a staff lounge, many in several teachers' private quarters or long forgotten parts of the castle ranging from towers to dungeons, different bathrooms of either gender and covering each of the House dormitories... 

It was really quite remarkable how long a merry chase they led, including one snake each in the Headmaster's Office and the Room of Requirement, all quietly forgotten as they lay innocuously concealed in among the ancient stonework's many other decorations. 

You had to be amazingly determined and resourceful to find them all. 

I could see how such a chase could easily have taken Tom five years to complete, just getting access to all of those places, not to mention moments of privacy there where he could be free to address those silver signposts in snake tongue to learn his new clues and gain some answers. 

Riddle was lucky he'd started so early in his first year. 

Or perhaps lucky wasn't the word for it. As Salazar was screening for all of the traits he loved among his descendants: rule breaking, resourcefulness, cleverness, determination and ambition, he'd want one that would sneak into those prefect rooms early. Thus, his leaving behind a quest that no one who'd gotten prefect status honestly would have time to complete in their remaining years at Hogwarts. 

Clever, ruthless but clever. It did serve to ensure that only someone like Tom Riddle, who had no respect for rules or authority, would be able to follow the whole trail to its end during their tenure as student. 

And staff? Heh, only during modern times could a male wizard enter female living quarters unaccompanied like this, even during summer when they were empty. Attempting to sneak into all of those private rooms, not to mention bathrooms and shower stalls, would have gotten any teacher, of EITHER gender, fired not long ago. No, those precious silver snakes were carefully scattered about so that no one, from the Headmaster on down, should have had the rights to just walked the path as I had done, at least anciently. 

It required resourcefulness, determination and breaking rules, and not just a few of them, to do this. 

So, yes, Salazar had left behind a network that screened for naked ambition first and foremost, and he had done such a bang-up job of it that no one had found all of his little clues until almost a millennia after he'd left the school. On that, he'd almost outsmarted himself, as what would his plans have come to if no one had ever opened up the Chamber of Secrets? 

For me, with a house elf supplied map (and, after the initial discovery of the one in the prefect quarters, and knowledge of the make and composition of the same silver snake at the end of this long quest, I had quickly refined the elves' search parameters to find me only small silver snakes embedded in some out of the way yet permanent places - and, doing so, I'd almost missed the one concealed in the floor of the Great Hall under the Headmaster's chair), well, for me it was a simple afternoon's worth of work. 

But then, I suppose that any puzzle is easy if you already knew the answer. 

Then, after having followed the snake signs to the third floor girl's lavatory, I realized that I hadn't learned all I needed to know, and went back carefully questioning each of the snakes I'd passed before, and this time learned of the special stuff I'd started this quest for - the passcodes and the secret lore for both controlling a basilisk and protecting yourself from its deadly gaze, as well as other secrets never hinted about in the books. 

It turned out that parcelmouths are not immune to a basilisk's gaze by default, nor can they control one as Tom had done without extra help. To do both of those required special potions and spells, all of which required the person to be a parcelmouth in order to have the spark to light it off. 

Fanfiction often spoke of spells, or entire classes of magic spoken in snake tongue. It existed, but they would have been disappointed with its scope. If it wasn't an effect closely related to snakes, parceltongue wasn't good for it. 

So, no superpowered killing curses (because loads of things killed, not just snakes), or awesomely overpowered shields (the best defense of any snake is biting you first, then escaping) or anything at all general purpose. Basically if it could be accomplished any other way, parcel-magic couldn't do it as well, being less powerful on average than ordinary magic. 

Which left it very little it was good at, all of it focused on snakes. 

There were more spells in a quarter of the first year Charms textbook than in all of parcel-magic. Heck, HERBOLOGY had more spells than the entirely of parceltongue did (which did make sense on reflection. If you pause a bit to think on it, there had been very few people to create spells for parcel-magic, in comparison to other arts). 

And most of what they did were permanent self-transfiguration rituals to become more snake and less human, basically the snake-faced Voldemort we knew from the books. Apparently, our latest Dark Idiot was just following along in Salazar's foot prints as he did that to himself. 

It did offer some slight advantages: a small resistance to curses, the ability to sense heat, and thus pierce through most glamours and invisibility cloaks, but overall it was just a freaky way to disfigure yourself. 

Tom Riddle had once been charming, and he had used charm to achieve great success on a large number of matters. But later he had traded that charm for a fearsome appearance and the ability to invoke terror, which, in the end, hadn't done as much for advancing his cause as charm had. 

I'll stick with charm, thank you. 

Although, there were promises laid down in hints and pieces by those same silver message serpents, that there were secrets down within the Chamber that would only yield to those who 'saw with the eyes of a serpent', not just spoke its tongue. 

So the whole 'turn yourself into an ugly snake creep' thing was encouraged, as Slytherin had promised his heir power for doing so. What powers he didn't say, but they were presumed to be glorious, by Salazar's standards anyway. And those were probably what Moldyshorts was seeking those times he'd tried to return to Hogwarts, as he'd only begun his snake transformation after graduation. So there was more power waiting if he could come back and presumably follow a whole new trail of clues only now visible to him. 

Once again, I'll stick with charm, thank you. 

But on the plus side, I knew what potion to take and what spell to cast that, in combination with parceltongue, would get me control of the pet basilisk - or indeed any basilisk. You had to cast it new with each one for the control spells to work on it, but immunity to a basilisk's gaze was universal once you had achieved that protection. 

That put me in the dementor destroying business. 

Two weeks of not acquiring any new memories, save by life experience, had done a great deal to calm my disordered mind. However, I wasn't fully sane yet, not by a long shot. 

Actually, acting for so long had done a fair deal to disturb my weak emotional balance, as not 'being myself' for that time period was, in retrospect, pretty harmful to my delicate, recovering psyche. 

Thus, I was vulnerable to being touched off in an entirely new method of madness as I invoked the ancient magic to take control of Slytherin's pet. 

Fortunately for me, it was a functional sort of madness, a drunkenness, if you will. My judgment was impaired and I didn't think too clearly, still dealing with bringing order out of the chaos within my mind. 

But it led to my doing some fairly odd things, perhaps unwise ones as well. 

Like, for example, morphing back to Gomez Addams dressed up in cowboy attire done in an Addams-ish style, and riding Blinky, as I decided to call my thousand year old king of serpents, out of the Chamber of Secrets. 

We petrified several ghosts on our way out, including poor Myrtle, who had some traumatic flashbacks after she was cured, poor dear. I picked up the thousands of empty sherry bottles Trelawnry had been hiding in the Room of Requirement for the past dozen years or so on our way out, then rode out into the Forbidden Forest on a lark while I transfigured the empty sherry bottles into a host of animated glass spiders. 

I may have hooted and whistled while riding Blinky into the depths of the place, but after turning our first centaur to stone (it saw our reflection in a pool, lucky thing), I had enough good judgment left in a corner of my mind to head Blinky over to the acromantula exhibit. 

We killed hundreds, if not thousands, of those things! 

It was fun, too. They so many eyes, you see. And I sent my glass spiders all over the place unhooking all of the anchors for their webs, so it was raining long strands of silk. After wondering briefly what kind of spaghetti it would make, I had enough of the original me surface through the madness to run into the idea of collecting it. 

So I pulled out the rods I purchased for this purpose, and soon I had giant spindles collecting a few tons of acromantula silk (not sold in any stores). 

On that note, I had my glass spiders begin to dissect the corpses of my defeated foes, consuming them back into the bottles that had been their original bodies. They even specialized, some sucking up venom, others collecting eyeballs, and so on! 

Spider meat could even be tasty, a memory told me. 

After having wrecked havoc on that part of the forest long enough, glass spider bodies bloated to several times their original volumes with all the ingredients they now contained, and far more silk on my spools than I knew what to do with, we adjourned from causing more carnage there among the acromantulas and rode back to Hogwarts. 

There, after sending down the glass spiders to the kitchens with a note instructing the house elves to see to it that their contents were properly preserved and placed in the DADA office, we slithered inside of the Vanishing Cabinet. 

I'd already placed the other end at Azkaban Island, inside of the fortress, as that was where I needed it for this little scheme, and I didn't want it traced back to me by any of those Addams' who'd paid for it. 

So, slithering out the other end, we began to slay dementors, as it turns out that they DID die upon sighting a basilisk! It was even worse for them than usual, as apparently whatever 'prey sense' they had to determine humans were near counted itself close enough to sight, and, while they couldn't tell much about animals or even humans by it, a basilisk is a higher order magical beast and stood out like a spotlight on those senses. 

And, for the ancient magic of Blinky, that was enough. 

Turning them all into happiness sucking statues that we could then give to giants to pound into pebbles we could then drop to the bottom of the deepest sea would have done, too, but killing them off was better. So I was glad that it worked out that most died that way (although we did net a few statues). 

We'd slaughtered every dementor on the island in a little less than half an hour. Aurors, warned by my hoots and shouts, and watching the dementors around them crumple like popped balloons, had largely started to run away in panic. Although, at least at first, I'd had to transfigure some moss into curtains so the first few to spot us were turned to stone instead of dead. 

That, and my joyful shouts of an adapted song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" adjusted for basilisks, pretty much warned off the rest, who fled in droves. 

Although the prisoners did not have that luxury. 

If I'd had Legilimency or Veritaserum on hand I would've questioned them on guilt or innocence, as plainly the Ministry did a pretty crappy job of it in at least some cases, but I had neither resource, nor truly any time. So I just slaughtered every Death Eater in there by having Blinky peer in their cages. 

Well, all except one. 

Bellatrix LeStrange had a vault I wanted to visit, and here she was! Why, how convenient!! She was heavy, so I allowed Blinky to carry her in its jaws, fangs carefully retracted of course, her legs kicking outside of the great serpent's mouth causing a certain amount of distress to her fellow Death Eaters just before they died. 

Leaving Tom destitute for recruits behind us, we left Azkaban the same way we'd entered and, instructing Blinky to return to the Chamber of Secrets and wait for me there, I stayed behind to close and shrink that most wonderful cabinet, putting it in my pocket before hauling out a magical boat I'd bought, unshrinking that, and making my way away from the island at high speed. 

Once safely on the coast, I carefully shrunk and stowed away my boat, then apparated as close as I could get to Malfoy Manor, as it had occurred to me that we'd probably need Bella's wand, and they most probably had it, seeing as how Rowling had shown that it had never been destroyed. 

Then it was once more back to Hogwarts, and once again I was riding my pet snake through the cabinet to come out on the Malfoy property, just outside the gates. Those big iron things they had there formed into a face to demand in imperial tones who we were and what we wanted, and I calmly (and in a remarkably good Gomez impersonation, I might add) informed them that it was Bellatrix LeStrange and guest, recently come from Azkaban. 

To my pleasure those gates actually opened, and I slithered in on the back of Blinky, Bella's legs still kicking out of her mouth - For, you see, according to Rowling, a male basilisk has a red cock comb, and Blinky here did not have one, so, therefore, she was a girl. 

And a good girl, too! 

I patted her on the ridge at the top of her head as I rode her up the long, straight drive to the prestigious Malfoy Manor, a house whose diamond shaped windows were all alight with some kind of party. 

My confused memories automatically matched names to faces as the guests of Malfoy's party who'd come out to greet us dropped dead on sighting us. 

Avery, Carrow, Crabbe Sr., Goyle Sr., Greyback, MacNair, Mulciber, Nott Sr., Rookwood, Selwyn, Travers... yup! It was Death Eater night at the old mansion. Everybody who wasn't in Azkaban was here, more or less (And that included a few who really ought to have been at prison still). 

Strange, no girls or female Death Eaters were present, nor were the children - but then I saw the strippers inside, and that explained it. They were having a stag party with the old crowd. Maybe somebody was getting married? Oh well, it made no difference to me. Why they'd have cast Imperious to get a goat, a dog, and a bull to put on clothes, then strip them off, was no concern of mine, nor was the octopus chained to the ceiling or the emus spread eagle on the floor. And, to put it bluntly, I didn't WANT to know! 

A few in the back, including Snape, who'd been closest to the stage and thus farthest from the door, saw what had happened to others who'd gone before them to greet the returning Bellatrix, so beat a hasty retreat out the other way, avoiding meeting Blinky's gaze. Well, most of them did, anyway. Many caught sight of her in glimpses through mirrors and chandeliers and silver plates and so on, but a surprising few just jammed their eyes shut and ran, crashing into things, it's true, but also escaping. 

So we just had to go charging in and bite them, dropping a saliva-covered Bellatrix in the process (whom I cursed so she couldn't get away). 

The slaughter was tremendous, but in the end many of them escaped via floo or running off the grounds and apparating. Blinky sniffed out the rest, the ones who tried to hide. 

Such FUN you could have with a basilisk!!!! 

OoOoO   
Author's Notes:   
Thank you for all of the reviews! 


	11. Chapter 11

My Gilded Life   
Chapter Eleven 

by Skysaber   
based on a challenge forwarded by Lionheart 

OoOoO 

I love the sight of dead Death Eaters. It looks like Victory! 

Having emptied out Azkaban Prison and a stag party at the Malfoy estate, we'd gotten all of the big bad ones, with only a handful of exceptions. Let Tom come back now, he was only half as dangerous without his followers. 

It was a good day to be half insane, wearing cowboy gear, riding on the back of a giant basilisk, with an insane female Death Eater dangling out its mouth and looking like Gomez Addams! 

Yes, a very good day for that indeed. 

But then, what wouldn't be a good day to do that? 

I'd been Obliviating in my own special way everyone I could catch just before Blinky could bite them, and also snagged a good couple of dozen wands. Hey! Try to disarm ME, why don'cha? I could afford to hide spares EVERYWHERE!! 

Okay, I think the madness was beginning to run away with me, time to rein myself in a bit and go on with what I was doing. It was pretty easy to demand of a house elf Bellatrix' wand if, in return, I would leave and take my basilisk with me. 

One of them popped off to wherever Narcissa was hanging out (to 'give the boys some space'), told her the story and got her permission for the trade. She emphatically agreed. 

So, concluding the deal, we departed. 

Once more I put Slytherin's pet back in the Chamber at Hogwarts through the vanishing cabinet, stayed behind to shrink and move the cabinet to a new location. This time: Gringotts! 

It was pretty simple, really, just Imperio Bellatrix into writing a letter to the goblins to deposit it in her vault, then send the shrunken cabinet to them via school owl, programmed to unshrink on its own after the owl landed there. How could you get easier than that? 

I may have danced a turn or two with Bellatrix while the statue of Salazar whistled tunes for us, just to pass the time waiting, of course. 

Then it was through the cabinet, into her vault, have her disarm the security protections there (or rather, in this case, key me in to them, which turned out to be far easier), then grab the cup and go! 

Back through the cabinet into Hogwarts, put the snake away to digest those Death Eaters it had consumed (Hey! It had eaten them, and they'd died! You'd think they'd been asking for it with a club name like that! With the way things turned out, Tom might just as well have named his club Basilisk Munchies! Or Purina Serpent Chow! Hmm, 'Pure' 'Purina' there was some connection here.) 

And it did my heart good to think on how I'd probably set Salazar to spinning in his grave, as I'd used the monster he'd left behind to destroy muggleborns as my device for wiping out much of what remained of the Purebloods! 

All, really, as those that were left were too small to form an effective breeding pool, even if they all immediately paired up and started going at it like Weasleys. So within a generation or two they couldn't even keep up the illusion of having 'pure blood'. 

Then, on that happy thought, as we went on our way out to arrange for Bellatrix to get whomped to death by a certain willow, I caught a glance out of a window and saw a familiar car... 

Wait a minute. Car? Here on the lawn? I thought this was Hogwarts? 

But, as the tantalizingly familiar vehicle pulled up just short of the steps, I saw a naggingly familiar chauffeur get out and open a door for... 

Morticia Addams!! 

Change of plans. We didn't have time to arrange for Bellatrix' demise right then, so rather than let her escape I dragged her with me to go out, by the fastest means possible. I found a floo and we immediately used it to go to a plausibly safe location. 

Number Four Privet Drive. 

After all, who'd look for me there? 

Since the Dursleys had been dead for weeks now, subjectively longer, at least from my frame of mind due to time travel doubling my own personal timeline, the house was quite empty of them, yet still filled with furniture and all of that. The wizards had cleaned up before they'd left, but not removed a thing. 

Actually, the house probably belonged to Harry now. 

Well, good for him. He could sell it if he ever needed money or he could use it as I was doing now and employ it as a safehouse. 

Ah, well. Down time was a good thing to have some of here and there. It helped you organize things, sort out your thoughts and so on to be more effective and purposeful later. 

So! I put Bellatrix to work on something (what, though, was a big issue. She didn't know much about anything muggle and I couldn't set her to do cleaning as the house simply didn't need it, nor did I want her going outside to do any gardening for fear she might be spotted. So she got tasked with organizing all of the junk in Dudley's former second bedroom) and sat down with a paper and fountain pen to brainstorm! 

First I wrote down a list of potential untapped resources who might be useful in getting me out of this Addams mess, and on top of that list was Bellatrix LeStrange, followed closely by Miranda Granger. I also put Narcissa Malfoy down as I was pretty sure with the help of Bella, I could get her sister to do something for me (if only I figured out what to do). 

Then, after scribing down Minerva McGonagall I ran out of who to put down. Several others were mirky and distrustful for one reason or another. 

So, coming to the end of one train of thought, I started another column on the same sheet of paper to write down a list of possible romances for Harry, under a heading of 'Acceptable Marriage Partners'. 

That came far more easily. 

All of the good prospects got on the list, starting with Luna Lovegood and the Patils, Lavender Brown and all of the named girls, even Ginny (although there was some hesitancy there, as Rowling's mangling of that relationship had stung so badly that I'd been somewhat soured on it, just for fear of any work I did in the same vein being linked to her incredibly botched job). 

To clear the bad taste of Rowling's contamination of the Ginny relationship out of my mind, I put down Moria, and immediately felt better. 

Nymphadora Tonks and Pansy Parkinson even found their places on that list, the first for obvious reasons, and the second because, well, this was a brainstorming session, even wild ideas could be considered. And, it must be said, Pansy was slavishly devoted to doing what her family expected of her, so if we could change those expectations there was even a wild chance she could turn out well. 

Not that I considered it likely, but there was a chance. And you do these kind of thing by first listing out all possibilities, then narrowing them down. 

Feeling satisfied at having that done, at least as far as the listing out part, I lay the sheet down on the table and went up to check on Bella. However, as I was passing the master bedroom I heard a thump from within. Thinking that odd, but wondering if my Imperio'd prisoner had gotten turned around and got the wrong room, I peered in, reaching for a light switch as I did so as the room was dark. 

"You stole the identity of a great man," a soft voice spoke from the darkness. I knew that voice, and it froze me to the spot. 

There came a soft rustling of cloth as that unseen person stood. "You stole from us, a thing many have tried but none, until you, succeeded. You spent our money for us, buying deadly dark items, wearing spiders out in public and chewing on them as you did so." 

She stepped into the light. It was Morticia. I felt this appalling urge to watch her as she came closer. It was like a train wreck, awful and horrible and yet you could not look away. 

"You frightened small children" she told me. "Terrified their mothers. Then, after writing a seductive note to another man's wife and sending it off with gifts and flowers you made her family pay for, you took a basilisk and rode it through a prison, singing merrily at the top of your lungs as you slaughtered guards and criminals alike in an orgy of destruction. Hundreds died. Then you went and did it again, at a man's house, interrupting a party, using the man's own sister-in-law you'd kidnapped from jail in order to gain entry - a woman that you still hold enslaved to your will." 

I began backing up, even reached for my wand, when she paralyzed me with a word. 

"Jared." 

I gazed on her in something akin to horror as she approached, closing the distance. "Oh, yes, we know who you are deep inside, behind all those masks you wear. Not Gilderoy, not Gomez, but the man you are at your heart and core. Some might call you paranoid, or a murderer. You broke into a bank and stole a priceless artifact. You casually slaughtered the family of a young boy and took control of his life yourself. You've gone insane, used Unforgivable curses, blackmailed the head of the Wizengamot, and the International Confederation of Wizards, and you have it in your heart to assassinate the Deputy Minister of Magic and possibly the Minister as well." 

She stepped close, close enough to touch me, and gently kissed me on the side of my face. "All this proves you a true Addams." 

My eyes had widened, and I stammered, "bu.. but... but, you guys scare me to death! I..." 

She gave a soft, ethereal smile and I stammered to a halt. "Yes. And that makes you fit in all the more. You might even murder us in our beds. So, Welcome to the Family." 

Okay, that was an INSANELY creepy and yet strangely Addams-ish comment. 

"I must be insane to be so calm about this," I muttered. "I should be running off screaming into the night right about now." 

"Oh, don't have any doubt of that, you are insane. That's part of what we love about you. But if it makes you feel any better, go ahead. I'll wait for you here until you're finished." She sat down demurely to pick up a book. 

"Thank you," I bowed my head to acknowledge the offer. Oddly enough, I was almost tempted. 

I quirked her a sad, disagreeing smile instead. "You do realize that in spite of being strangely attractive you are everything I despise?" 

"Oh?" she rose, once again, softly to her feet, placing both her hands on my chest. "You say the sweetest things. Mon Ami" 

"Oh, Tish!" I morphed into Gomez Addams once again. "You spoke French!" 

"Oui," she met my eyes with a smoldering gaze. 

I moved toward her only to find the blade of a sword resting against my throat. Looking down the silvery length I saw the real Gomez Addams was holding it. He tsked softly once or twice, then cast away the sword and took his wife in his arms, bending her down to smother her with kisses, which she received quite gladly. 

I quickly excused myself from the scene, feeling oddly soiled that my automatic reaction to quote movies under certain circumstances had brought me close to danger of the moral kind - even if only in seeming. 

I'd rather die than break any of my covenants, and had come much closer to each than I cared to. 'Avoid the very appearance of evil' and all of that. 

The two began to make certain distinct noises as I left Vernon Dursley's bedroom. This was a family that would think nothing of sneaking into your room in the dead of night to perform surgery so you'd wake up with entirely different limbs, or not wake up at all! So I didn't want to stick around. 

I collected Bellatrix and left the house, not wanting to be near when they finished. Okay, they hadn't killed me, and I was grateful for that, but it just wasn't safe to stick around! 

Some time later Morticia would descend those stairs and found the note I'd forgotten on the table, picking it up and quirking an eyebrow in interest. 

OoOoO 

Arriving back at my penthouse (and seeing no reason not to return there now that I'd already been found by the Addams) I put my prisoner to work seeing to the organization of our small library by type and title, and pondered on what I was going to do with her, a pondering that included what little I knew of her. 

Bellatrix was taller than most witches, had sleek, fine black hair, pale skin, a thin mouth, dark, heavily lidded eyes, and the Black family's patrician good looks and bearing. However, her beauty was somewhat hollowed out after her stay in Azkaban prison. But, ironically, not as badly as some celebrities did to themselves on purpose (and I'd never understand the ultra-thin look). 

Like many members of the Black family, Bellatrix was named after a star: Bellatrix, also known as Gamma Orionis, one of the brightest stars in the constellation Orion. Her given name translated exactly from Latin as the feminine form of the noun 'warrior'. She married Rodolphus LeStrange after leaving Hogwarts 'because it was expected of her' to marry a pure-blood, although even Rowling said she had no affection for him. No, none at all. 

But I did not find that at all surprising. 

Actually, I'd been shocked they'd waited that long to get her hitched. 

Nobility and other selective breeding groups tend to marry off their children when they were still quite young, as this tended to cut down on any nasty rebelliousness by catching them before they'd developed any interests or tastes of their own - thus drastically cutting down on instances of the kids trying to have a say in the matter of who they were going to marry. It also short-circuited any attempts to disobey or marry below their station. 

Since nobility are historically also lawmakers, laws had a tendency to reflect their habits, not only allowing, but enforcing them where ever possible. 

In Magical Britain, turning eleven, or Hogwarts age, was considered perfectly acceptable and respectable for a marriage, if parents desired so (seventeen, or later, if it was the student's idea). And to shield their offspring from perhaps falling into deplorable relationships with mudbloods, blood traitors or other unacceptable garbage they would unfortunately run into while at school, the Purebloods had a long established custom to have their children engaged in proper, pure-blooded relationships before they even set foot on the train. 

If was scandalous if you didn't! Just think of the disobedience that might erupt! 

And, to prevent any of their precious children from doing anything about it, there were rather substantial fines owed if those engagements were broken - fines which were owed by the individual, NOT the family! 

Fines which, not coincidentally, would just happen to completely empty out the trust fund (these were almost always of a certain size) plus a little extra for guaranteeing the willful youth would be reduced to a pauper. Most would not even be able to continue paying for school, and so would be forced to drop out, becoming half-trained magical dregs for the most part, unable to get any real paying jobs (Sirius had been saved from such by the Potter family stepping in to fund his education). 

In short, those agreements served as tools to say "Do as we say or you will be ruined and thrown out onto the streets penniless, despised by the other families as an oathbreaker, and cast out of the only society you ever knew," and were quite effective in their own brutal way at ensuring obedience. 

And discretion, in those inevitable cases when they cheated on each other, because truly, the purebloods were far more interested in image than facts. 

On questioning, Bellatrix revealed enough to show that the freaky pleasure pain reversal thing was not a rumor, and had been done to her. The poor girl didn't even know they'd done it to her, but from what she said, it was plainly obvious they had. 

Well sadly, due to the nature of my previous bought of insanity, I'd forgotten to pick up Riddle's Diary when I was at the Malfoy house. That put my plans back by rather a large bit, as I could no long use my original plan of waiting til classes started in the new school year, then giving Ginny a detention and asking that she bring her new diary to it - trading Riddle's diary for a new, girly one, then destroying the old. Of course, Lucius was now dead, so that plan wasn't going to work now, seeing as how he couldn't be around to slip that diary to Ginny in the first place. 

But that was actually a good thing on all counts. 

Narcissa should be in charge now, and she still adored her sister, so all I had to do was use Bellatrix to get the Diary. 

Simple, right? 

Well, on that note, I felt it was time that I got introduced to the LeStrange mansion. And, wouldn't you know it? I had the appropriate person to do it right there with me! Bellatrix, as the only remaining LeStrange, ought to do just fine. 

And so it proved. 

I'd thought the Weasleys had a ton of land, seeing how poor they were the actual acreage surrounding their home was an intense surprise, but that got put in true perspective as I saw how much the LeStrange's had. Heck, I'd lived in TOWNS that were smaller than the lot their manor stood on! 

By now I knew pureblood customs, oh, better than I'd ever wanted to! And it was no small fact that Bellatrix was the last LeStrange. But, as a detested female, she had no rights, save a few only, for the control of their property. 

She could not control it. No, all she could do would be to will it to a male heir or to marry herself off and use it as her dowry. Well, I was all for having her declare me the heir and stringing her up a nearby tree, but, well, you must understand that just wasn't done! 

And not, you can be sure, out of simple decency. No, the purebloods had no respect for what anyone else could call decent. Among those ancient families people killed off other people to get ahold of their fortunes all of the time, but you were at least expected to have some cleverness about it! Purebloods didn't want other purebloods hunting them with killing curses on their lips at all hours of the day and night, so they'd instituted some rules for how not to go about getting a hold on another's fortune. 

And one of the first of those was that you could not inherit from someone you had killed yourself. Forcing ambitious heirs to scheme with third parties to do those deeds slowed them down by quite a bit and made things more interesting and challenging. So, if you did do it this way, at least you'd have proven to the family that you deserved the money you got out of it! 

Well, I only had control of Bellatrix because of my Imperious spell on her, and I wasn't about to let go of it. Trouble was, she couldn't die with that spell on her without me being automatically excluded from any inheritance from her, due to those same rules I'd just described, and building those rules into the magical act of inheritance had been accomplished centuries before. 

I wasn't about to be able to break such ancient magics on my own. Besides, I needed Bellatrix alive in order to have her convince her beloved sister to part with Riddle's diary for me. 

Still, central bookkeeping was not a strong suit of the wizarding world either, so she could tell the wards whatever she liked and it wasn't going to be printed in the Prophet the next day. So, I had her key me into the household wards as her husband, transferring full control over to me. 

It was the only way it could be done. She couldn't just sell it to me, as Sirius had done with his ancestral home, because women weren't allowed to dispose of the property of a family they'd married into that way. It was a great big convoluted mess, and like most legal codes made no sense whatsoever when viewed objectively, without the lenses of ancient tradition, prejudice and compromise that had prevailed over each step of its creation. But, what it all boiled down to was that as the last remaining LeStrange she could control very few of the rights a male head of family could in her place, and none of those let her sell things. But she could arrange a marriage for any female clan member (herself included) and decide upon a dowry - an amount of cash or property to be transferred to the male she was wedding. 

We just set that amount to everything the LeStrange family had and told the wards so, granting me full control of everything in the whole estate, making this now Lockhart Manor, instead of its former name. 

Luckily for me, in a good and proper household, this was something the eldest female (Bellatrix) would be expected to prepare and send out notices of, thus informing all proper and appropriate sources of information dissemination in pureblood society - and I wasn't about to let Bellatrix do any such thing, as that would turn our little ruse into an official arrangement rather than something we'd just told the wards to bypass the security features. 

I wasn't expecting this to last in any case. I was just here to get my hands on those semi-secret LeStrange family spells so I could learn how to reverse them. But I needn't have worried, once she'd shown me in to the hidden vault on the family property where they kept such things (a place warded so no female could ever enter) I found a book which not only contained the horrid and criminal pleasure/pain reversal spell, but one for its removal as well - it turned out that even the sick man who'd developed it had recommended that it only be in place for a few hours, at most. 

Any long term use could warp the mind. Well, duh! 

I cast the removal spell on her and Bella's expression went from a slightly demented triumphal leer of 'I'm so superior' that was her typical expression before this to a distinctly unhappy green. 

Ah! Her own lingering pain from Azkaban and who knew what else had been sustaining her, I'd guess. Now she was forced to deal with that as it should be instead of cherishing what remained of it. 

Dang! This situation was really screwed up, you know that? 

I'd had more than a bit of that experience myself, so could sympathize. I had now, in my little head, a collection of memories quite unusual for my age and situation. And, well, some of those people hadn't been ... what was the word I was looking for? Ah. Let's just state it delicately and say they did not follow my own, rather strict, moral code. Several things they'd been quite proud of I found myself completely disgusted by. 

And the change from 'cherished' to 'disgusting' memory was not a pleasant one. Nor, I suspected, was it going to be easy for Bella, who'd accumulated quite a collection of acts she was no longer wired to appreciate. 

No, as I watched her grow steadily more green, then break down and start sobbing on the floor, I realized that the level of remorse could quite easily kill her. No one could look at her past deeds with any pride if they had any sort of conscience whatsoever - and now she, who felt and thus recorded the feelings of others to an extent, was being forced not only to face her own guilt but to experience the pain she'd caused as well. 

Every recent memory she'd once cherished, everything since entering the service of Voldemort, all of her reveling in the pain and suffering of others, was now tearing her apart like so many spiritual knives. 

No, looking at her break down before me I realized this truly was going to kill her. There was no way that she could bear it. With all of her former sources of greatest strength turned against her, she was doomed. 

Pity. I needed her. 

An Obliviate spell later and she could function, but it could only reach her mind, not the injuries she'd done to her soul, and Bellatrix would be dealing with those wounds she'd dealt to others for a very long time to come. 

Perhaps not in her waking moments, during those she'd probably be able to shove it aside to feel a mere unease. However, I rather expected that during her nightmares she was going to be suffering the pains of a damned soul in hell - and I meant that quite literally. 

True remorse of conscience inflicted an agony like no other. 

I believed, in that moment, that she was still going to die. Well, except... yah, I knew the remedy myself, had used it on many occasions. I pulled out my set of scriptures and commanded her to read them. 

We'd be discussing them as she read. 

Religion was the only true medicine for a wounded soul, and the atonement of Christ served exactly the purpose this person needed. By paying the penalty for all our sins, Christ had become the Redeemer, and though her sins be as scarlet, yet they could be made as white as snow through the blood of the Lamb of God. 

But really, the atonement, being infinite and eternal, was sufficient for all who came unto Christ with full purpose of heart. It would be enough if only she chose to embrace Him. Otherwise, well, there was no other way to save her. It was all up to her now, and her future choices. 

I had felt myself the healing power of the atonement and would be bearing testimony to the cleansing it gave during the coming week. And, by doing so, I would recover from my madness far more than my own efforts might have achieved on their own. 

So, we returned to my penthouse (a far less dark and miserable environment than the ancient home of the twisted, black-souled LeStranges) and devoted ourselves that week to trying to recover my mind and teaching Bellatrix true religion, pure and undefiled. 

In between boughts of scripture study I reviewed my own memories in the pensieve and kept up with my more public duties: going out on public speaking tours, photo shoots and book signings, which did assist in reestablishing a firm grounding for at least the Lockhart side of me, and since the Lockhart bits were just an extension pack to my own true self, by the end of the week I was almost back to functioning at a normal level, no longer tempted to run off charging through arctic wilds naked or swing through Paris on web strands doing a Spider Man impression. 

No, by the end of that week I'd managed to beat back the madness to almost normal levels, though I still had some bit of trouble getting my collected series of assorted quirks under control in private moments. 

Bellatrix had, during this time, embraced my faith with all of the earnestness of an eager convert, much like someone on fire might embrace being put out - and believe me, the pain of guilt of that level of extremity was worse than any fire. Mere torment of the body could not compare to spiritual agony. 

I had, naturally enough, during this process abandoned any plans I had to kill her as no longer necessary or desirable. She was repenting, a process that changed who she was inside more effectively than Obliviation or indeed anything else could arrange. 

Indeed, we were fast becoming friends as she did so. And she was punishing herself for her sins more effectively than I ever could. Prisons by and large didn't work to reform criminals, but this was exactly that change they sought. So, if God was willing to forgive her enough to take away her guilt, which He was doing by degrees, I was willing to call her slate cleared and not do or contemplate any other injury to her. 

Of course that meant modifying my plans. 

Nor was Bellatrix' change of heart alone in causing my plans to change to better suit altered circumstances. The papers had finally revealed something that Minister Fudge had practically been turning himself inside out to conceal, namely my attack on Azkaban prison and the mass slaughter of dementors and convicts there. 

For four days now the Daily Prophet had been screaming for investigations into the Malfoy Manor Massacre. Ever since Narcissa had been stonewalled by an attempted Ministry cover-up (Fudge fearing that any investigation at all would reveal his ties to those Death Eaters, including some who had been financing him) she'd gone to the press. 

Now, with the Azkaban attack revealed by some Aurors who'd become sick of the administration's attempts to protect itself from public revulsion over its own well deserved reputation for incompetence. So, since they'd spoken out about that mass attack as well, the magical public was screaming for Fudge to be removed from office. 

Well and good. If that happened I might have to drop my nebulous plans to do the removing myself. 

On that thought I'd prepared a speech to give saying how shocked, shocked I tell you, I was at out present Minister's incompetence for the role! 

Okay, the man had given me four Orders of Merlin, First Class (meaning I now had five Orders of Merlin, if you wanted to count the third class the original Lockhart had gotten), the latest for my recent discovery of a technique for 'Taming' werewolves - ie, blowing the animal minds of their wolf sides down to nothing via Obliviation, then treating the patient with a dose of Wolvesbane so the human side could gain control of the beast form, and having once had control of the transformed state, learn to do so without the potion. 

Remus had been quite vocal in his praises for me, and not even the recent scandal at the Ministry over those attacks had quite pushed me off the front page, as everyone wanted to speculate on what their world would be like now that werewolves could be cured - if not of the transformations (though those hurt less, I am told), then of their beastly, animal natures. 

The dangerous parts, in other words. 

New legislation I'd suggested was already coming to a vote to distinguish a tame werewolf from a feral one, with all of the prejudice and discrimination formerly on the law books directed only to feral werewolves, and the tame ones, while not QUITE treated as ordinary members of society, then at least as second rate people instead of vermin. 

That legal change was already drawing werewolves out of the Forbidden Forest and other places to get tamed in anticipation, and everyone was a bit shocked at their numbers. 

And what was Albus doing hiding his own werewolf colony so near to a school anyway? Was there anything dangerous, deadly or harmful to children he did NOT keep in or near that place? 

What was he thinking? 

Oh. 

The numbers of werewolves were revealed to be so extremely high that any soul who could've organized them could not only have taken over the magical world, they might've had a good go at conquering muggle Britain as well. And, as their patron saint, the man who 'protected' them, Albus had that level of influence over the werewolves. He could easily have been subtly working to increase their numbers over the years. 

In particular, by sending children into the Forbidden Forest on detentions at night, a place where werewolves were known to roam. 

I had been shocked that evil manipulative Albus was actually canon. Rowling had stated as much outright in her last book. "Albus learned secrets and lies at his mother's knee, and turned out to be a natural." - stated by his own BROTHER, no less! 

But his behavior was certainly bearing that out here. 

Best friends with Grindewald indeed, taught him much of what he used to take over magical Europe, then resisted pleas to take him on for five bloody years of carnage and chaos. 

No, the Dark Lord Dumbledore, it seemed, differed from Voldemort and his friend Grindewald only in that he'd been successful in taking over the magical world, and he'd done so in such a way as to make everyone glad he'd done it. 

I guess that showed better than anything the difference between charm and terror. Tom Riddle had started with charm, only to switch to terror and get destroyed, while Albus had stuck with charm and gotten control of magical society handed to him by people eager to see him in charge. 

I'd guess, taken from that perspective, the last few wizarding wars were just about Albus putting down rivals. 

Oh. 

No wonder he'd never taught Harry anything! It seemed he'd had enough of former students trying to rise against him. Harry had powerful gifts and the old man didn't want to bother putting down another rival! 

That thought put everything in another perspective. 

Actually, that put a more than somewhat scary spin to my own situation! He had seen to it that not only did Harry not learn anything important, but that he'd been regularly beaten, abused, starved and brutalized with Albus always appearing as a savior to draw him away from the very situations he himself had created! All of that just to neuter a potential rival. 

Well, then what would he think of me? 

I was now more popular than Dumbledore was, riding high on my latest few triumphs of public opinion. And Harry and my latest book concerning the poor boy's tragic childhood, all arranged by Dumbledore, was going to be coming out in stores in the next few days! 

We would, with a single book, do more damage to Dumbledore's real power base, his reputation as a saint and savior, than all of his latest rivals combined. What would that man be willing to do to shut me up then? 

He'd as much as tossed Sirius into Azkaban personally, all just because the man was official guardian to a child Albus wanted to control and destroy. In light of the Imperious spell I couldn't see how ANYONE could be denied a trial no matter how many people 'knew' he did something! Sure! You did it! But was it your idea or were you under a control spell? 

Yet I wouldn't be at all surprised if it had been Albus whispering in the ear of Barty Crouch Sr. to give him the idea to deny Sirius any chance to defend his actions and prove his case in court. 

As far as heartless manipulations go, the man was beginning to seem like a smiling, grey haired Gendo Ikari. One who wore robes. 

And that didn't spell any good for anyone he deemed an opponent. Because Albus really was powerful, while I..? 

Well, if I seemed powerful, it was simply that I bore a certain resemblance to the Madwand (a magical character in a series of books that was swapped for a technological child by a wizard, then had to return to his magical world when the changeling techman became an absolute menace there). 

Simply put, I didn't fall into the same old mindset. 

ANYONE in Rowling's world could do the things I did... but they didn't, as they were not logical and had ingrained patterns of activity. 

The magical World was VERY medieval under the surface trappings, and that included keeping a very strong status quo. Something to keep in mind was that in the Dark Ages in Europe, discovery and scientific exploration were not just frowned on, but considered diabolism. 

I was, simply put, traveling the road not taken. Therein lay all the difference. 

But Dumbledore? That man had all of the power it was possible to get under the traditional approach to magic. He truly was formidable, playing with Tom Riddle instead of destroying him, so good at shadowy manipulation that he wasn't discovered until after his death, and ultimately overconfident to the point of being amused by most threats. 

But above all a very, very good actor, one who could kill someone openly and make his victim believe it was 'for his own good.' 

I didn't imagine I could take such a man on and emerge anything but a broken, wasted shell of my past self. 

But, also, if he chose to see me as a rival... I'd have to try. 

On that note, I decided to go on over to visit Grindewald in that prison he'd built with Albus' favorite motto over the door, just to get the inside scoop on Dumbledore's childhood relationship with him so I could publish more dirt on the man to get him into more trouble now, while he was still a stationary target. However, at that moment a desperate knock came at my door, so I got up and answered it in equal haste, after shoving Bellatrix into a closet. 

The Granger family were all there, clutching belongings to their chests and looking as desperate as shipwreck victims. 

I invited them inside at once, noting with a sinking feeling that Ted was not among them. What was it? A car accident? No, the truth, I was to find, was far worse. 

Miranda was in tears. Not just a little bit, but they kept flowing non-stop. Her daughters fared somewhat worse, and they all huddled together in a little ball of misery, wailing on my sofa to which they'd dragged me as if I were their lifeline. It was Harry who, miserable though he was, came through with an explanation. And it was not a pretty one. 

They'd had another argument (this time about giving the kids 'The Talk' of all things) and the blow up had been severe on Ted's part. 

It was sad to see Ted's reactions to the magicification of his family, but it is a fact of the real world, that some people do not adjust well to significant changes in the people around them (especially family). 

Poor Ted. He shouldn't let stress and control issues get in the way like that. 

But that was my last sympathetic thought for him, perhaps ever, as I learned from the sobbing bundles of pain he'd once called family that Ted had apparently activated a prenuptial agreement - one where he kept everything, the house, the car, all of their bank accounts, even the dental partnership he and his wife had built together. 

Everything. He could even have kept the kids, but chose not to. Apparently, due to the Raiders of the Lost Ark just having finished filming in the week that I'd spent locked up regaining my marbles, Ted had received a very lucrative and flattering offer to star in a remake of Lawrence of Arabia, and had decided to start his life over, unencumbered by his former family. 

This was, understandably, a harsh reaction for them all to take. Instant care and concern was called for, which I instantly provided, though the details of which make for boring reading, as it amounts to soothing words and touches as you might use to calm a child woken by nightmares. 

Intermixed with a few hard nuggets of real calamitous facts. 

"We have no place to live!!" Miranda sobbed, her tears uncontrollable. 

Well, I wasn't going to let THAT stand! "Well, you're all welcome to stay with me as long as you like, of course! Miranda and the girls can take my bed, and I'll sleep on the sofa. Dora can return to sleeping with her parents, while Harry can have the guest bedroom once again." 

I got interrupted by a wail of misery from Miranda, although it was rather hard for me to reach over and comfort her, seeing as how I'd somehow been buried under a combination of Hermione and Moria seeking hugs and thereby pinned to the couch. 

"I don't even have a family name anymore!" she wailed. 

"Well, Lockhart is available. And you're all welcome to use it if you like," I returned, determined not to leave any wound untended or problem unfixed. "Although Potter would be another excellent choice. Actually, I can think of a catalog of families that would love to take you on. Black and Lupin and even the Weasleys all come to mind. No, there's no shortage of those, and you can take your pick when the time is right. So, no worries there!" 

The day descended into evening with nothing more established or done but the tending to raw emotional wounds. Toward the end of it I was feeling some measure of both exhaustion and stress. 

I had a nervous habit, a quirk if you will. When I am feeling nervous or stressed, which hadn't truly happened on this trip up until now, I had a tendency to... well, I just happened to... 

Sigh. 

Okay, when I'm feeling pushed up against my limits I have a habit of reciting the Dragon Slave spell. 

After putting all of the Grangers, or former Grangers, I should say, to bed but before anyone drifted off to sleep (too miserable to, I'd guess) I stood with my arms full of blankets in the living room, looking out over the city through the big, plate glass windows on the balcony, when my nervous habit kicked in and I just started chanting under my breath. 

"Darkness beyond the twilight..." 

However, unlike all of the OTHER times I had done this, I immediately felt a rush of power and saw myself surrounded by a effervescent rainbow glow swirling up around me. 

It was at that moment that I realized that I was at the center of one of the most populated cities on Earth, and if the special effects were any indication I'd just started a spell that was the equivalent of a tactical nuclear weapon - with no place to safely point it! 

With horror I found myself unable to halt my recitation. 

"Crimson beyond blood that flows..." 

OoOoO   
Author's Notes: 

Well, what would YOU do in that situation? I really do have that habit, you know. I don't even know when or where I picked it up, I just do it, fairly often at that. 

And, well, you know, it just kinda struck me (as I was chanting that spell under my breath after a particularly stressful day) that there might be unintended consequences to doing that in a world where the rules of magic hold sway (even if it was supposed to be a completely different system). 

After all, that's a spell with VERY few acceptable uses! 

And no, I don't intend to destroy Hogwarts with it. Chasing down Riddle with it is a bit like using a cannon when a flyswatter would do, and smacking on Death Eater houses with it, well, a lot like Lina I prefer for there to be something around to loot afterwards! 

No, mass carnage is a wee bit out of place in a modern world. 


	12. Chapter 12

My Gilded Life   
Chapter Twelve 

by Skysaber   
based on a challenge forwarded by Lionheart 

OoOoO 

"In the stream of time, it's where your power grows..." 

Apparating when you're in the midst of spellcasting is a good way to get yourself splinched, and, when the spell was as powerful as this one, perhaps fatally. 

"I pledge myself to conquer..." 

I couldn't even move from the spot where I was standing! My legs were not obeying me, and my arms were busy cradling and forming the energy! 

"All the foes who stand!" 

By now, sensing either the power that was now running through me or seeing the cascades of light I was giving off, my guests had stirred from their nests and were poking their noses out into the living room, wondering what was going on. 

"Against the mighty gift bestowed, in my unworthy hand!" 

I also realized, belatedly, that I was now shouting out the words to the spell. Fortunately for me, I'd always thought of and used a version without any pledges to darkness of any kind. It just wasn't worth it even to think in those terms, make that especially not to think in those terms. 'As a man thinketh, so is he,' and frankly Darkness just wasn't any fun. 

Some people forgot to mention that happiness, joy, peace and satisfaction... the Light Side are they! And once you start down the Dark path, you stop to a greater or lesser extent being able to feel them. And, well, that messed you up pretty badly right there. 

Even if Darkness did give power, you stopped being able to enjoy it! 

"DRAGON..." 

I found my mouth filled by something and couldn't complete the last word. It felt like a tongue, but it wasn't mine. I mean, I'm pretty sure it wasn't in there before this, and... 

I realized I'd closed my eyes. On opening them, I discovered a ball of energy congealed in my hands and a familiar witch holding my face, kissing me rather forcefully. 

The ball of energy sputtered and died, as negative energies cannot coexist in the same body with positive ones like love and so on, and I was a sucker for a pretty witch. Plus, we were friends. She must have felt my dread and come out of the closet where I had so rudely tossed her. But she was smiling as she released me and stood back. 

Hermione was burning with... something, indignation perhaps? Moria was standing close by her mother and Miranda was shocked, too much so for me to read anything at all but that in her face and stance. However, as Bellatrix stepped away from me, it was Harry who asked the first question. 

"What sort of spell was that?" 

I chuckled, amused and relived both at the same time. Sitting myself down on the couch I managed to explain, "That, Harry, was the single most dangerous spell you are ever likely to see. Over a thousand years ago a wizard like me used it to slay a dragon in a single shot; from this event, it came to be known as the 'Dragon Slayer' spell. Although, over the years the name did become corrupted a bit until it got to be known as the 'Dragon Slave'. It requires a bit of punch behind it to get it properly powered, and frankly I'd never succeeded before in casting it. But in the wake of dealing with your family's misery I was feeling a bit more wound up than usual, and as I mumbled the words under my breath trying to distract myself before I went to sleep... Well, you saw." I waved toward where I'd been standing, closer to the window. 

Of course, that was all true... in the Slayers universe, NOT the Harry Potter one. But then, it wasn't likely that anyone could tell. 

I flashed a grateful smile up to Bellatrix. 

I began shaking my head, still smiling up at her. "I should never have been so careless." 

"And... what would it have done?" Harry was shaking his head in confusion. 

I turned my head to look at him, beholding his family as well, sitting rather slack in my seat as I did so. "Probably destroyed a large portion of the city of London. There was no place safe to aim it, the safest would probably have been up, but even I don't know if it would have detonated on the ceiling or punched straight through the roof to explode in the sky above, and the spell's destructive power is unmatched by anything known to wizard kind. I..." 

A rush of guilt had come over me at the thought and my previous relaxed attitude evaporated. In the manner of a desperate man lunging for a toilet before he hurls, I sprang forth off of the sofa and slammed open the window, bursting out onto the balcony just before that ball of incredible energy rematerialized in my hands. 

"DRAGON SLAVE!!!!" 

The ball became a beam as I pointed my cupped hands upwards, firing off into space at a slight angle in case, like one of Ryoga's depression blasts, it came right back down after reaching its highest point. 

I needn't have worried. The spell had an extremely long range, as it must have to cast it safely, given the area and force of its destructive power. And like a fireball, if it has struck nothing before it reaches the end of that range it goes off right there, treating its own extremity as a trigger. We got away with an extremely bright fireworks display that turned the night sky a vivid orange for a few moments, the booming crack of the explosion following moments later. 

Unfortunately, the phenomena known as Electro Magnetic Pulse was not unique to nuclear explosions. I am told it is present in any explosion, no matter the size, but that in nothing short of nuclear does the effect become pronounced enough to become noticeable or damaging to any degree. 

Just like a sparrow is not going to knock you around in the turbulence of its passage, but a big passenger jet flying just as close might. Or rather, would. 

So, since the spell creates an explosion on a level of some nukes, my Dragon Slave sent a burst of EMP out over London proper. 

The muggles were NOT going to be happy! 

Of course, most of those complaints were probably going to be on the order of, "The cable is out!?! OH NO!" 

I collapsed back down to the ground, hair white and exhausted. Bellatrix and Miranda almost shoved each other aside trying to catch me, so neither succeeded and I got a couple of bumps. 

Nevertheless, they brought me to the couch, and laying me there upon it, I had those two bustling about with blankets or hot chocolate, while Hermione stood over me with a worried expression on her face, and... 

... A copy of 'Magical Me', Lockhart's autobiography clutched in her arms. It would seem that the pretty little witch had been trying to read herself to sleep. 

I then saw where the bookmark was inside it, or rather bookmarks. I could see she'd been marking favorite pages by the amount of turned down corners apparent. Taking a glance at my study, the room she'd taken over for the night, I could see a pile of very familiar books had spilled out of her bookbag, all of them bearing multiple bookmarks and turned down pages, and every last one I could see by me. 

Conclusion: Hermione had been reading my novels all this past week, and if the look of deeply concerned adoration on her face was any way to judge, was every bit as smitten with me as before, in the books I mean, well, you get the idea. 

My favorite character had just developed a fangirl crush on me. Was I some sort of irony magnet, or something? 

Bella brushed back in with the hot chocolate just as Miranda finished juggling the blankets for perfect patient comfort and protection from chills. So I felt I ought to jump in with some explanations to seize the initiative and steer a clear course between the awkward questions that might follow. 

"First things first," I declaimed, panting softly, glad to have that crisis passed and raising an illustrative finger to make my point clear. "My white hair is temporary, a sign of extreme magical exhaustion. It shall return to its natural color in a few days, although I believe I'll have to eat quite a few very hearty meals in the meantime. The amount of energy that spell takes is extreme." 

"I'll bet," Harry whispered in awed tones, having seen the enormous size of the blast out through the window. 

Hermione was nodding eagerly, perhaps too eagerly, as she clutched the bound book to her chest and agreed, "Yes. To slay a dragon in a single shot... I bet there isn't another wizard alive who could have cast such a spell. Not even Dumbledore has access to thousand-year-old forgotten magic!" 

"Quite," I acknowledged her point with a nod before hurrying on lest this conversation side-track itself. 

I quickly met the eyes of Bellatrix, and she gave me a small nod. My Imperious curse on her failed in the wash of grief over her misdeeds the moment after I'd removed the pleasure/pain reversal curse, and I'd not even known about it until days later, hardly being an expert with that spell. 

But the fact was that she had had ample chance to betray me during that time and had not used it. So a certain amount of trust had arisen from that, and I wasn't about to go spilling her secrets without permission. 

"Now to the next main issue. Everyone, I'd like you to meet the Death Eater I'd shoved into the closet on your arrival." I motioned to Bellatrix, who did not move even as the family startled around her. So I rushed on to explain, "I captured her a little over a week ago now, because I found it necessary to use her influence to destroy certain objects relating to our most recent Dark Lord, which I shall be explaining all about in a moment." 

Seeing I still had their attention, I continued at a somewhat hurried pace. "Frankly, when I first took her into my custody it was my intention to see her punished for her crimes as soon as I had no more use for her aid in recovering the item. However, since then I came to find she was not in her right mind when committing those vile misdeeds, and has begun feeling more terrible than I can describe over them. So it is no longer up to me to punish her, and that's a situation that's going to have to be resolved another way, possibly through the courts, although those have bungled enough jobs of this that I'm no longer certain we can trust them to do the right thing." 

I turned my head so I could meet everyone's eyes. "Tomorrow afternoon I shall take her in to meet Amelia Bones, Head of Magical Law Enforcement, to plead her case, and we shall decide there what is to become of her. Now back to the very important reason I sought her out in the first place. Bella?" 

The former LeStrange had already anticipated my need and brought forth the cup. I accepted it from her and held it in my lap, too weak to raise it up for everyone to look at. 

I gave them all a cheerful, triumphant smile. "Though it may not look like a great deal, this is one of the most precious artifacts in the wizarding world. It is a cup that once belonged to Helga Hufflepuff, who enchanted it with many powers. You can even see her mark on the bottom." I turned it over so they could do so. 

Eyes widened, even, it must be said, on Bellatrix who'd not known that about that trifling detail. 

"However," I went on, feeling rather jaunty. "It is not for that reason I sought it out. As priceless a historical artifact as this is, there was a much more pressing concern for me to recover it." 

I gave them all a much more serious expression. "Our last Dark Lord is not quite dead." I dropped the bombshell on them, startling many all over again. "He is a spirit, a wraith if you will, tied to this Earth by immortality rituals he performed. Harry has defeated him twice now, once when he was a baby, and once more during the end of that last school year when he was possessing your last Defense teacher. At present, he cannot be destroyed completely, and he will never stop trying to return. However, the good news is that his immortality comes from having prepared soul anchors. This object is one such. Once they all are destroyed, he can be forever defeated. And if they are destroyed while he still lacks a body he should vanish away like vapor, never to return, passing on to an eternity of unbearable agony from having shredded his own soul, the ultimate form of self-inflicted punishment." 

I sighed, panting for a moment to regain my breath and a little stunned at how weak I was. After gratefully gulping down the cup of chocolate, I gave the group a reassuring smile. "The Dark Lord Voldemort was born a boy named Tom Marvolo Riddle, and it will be that name I'll using to refer to him, as he has the power to cast a powerful curse over the one he made up, a curse that both gives him or his followers power to locate whoever says it, and also strips away any protective spells they may be under. Thus the reason why so many wizarding folk are afraid to say his name." 

I met the eyes of Harry and Hermione. "Yes. I know that Dumbledore told you there is no reason to fear a name. In that, he was not entirely correct. While there may be small reason to fear it now, if you develop the habit of saying it you may find yourself in trouble when or if he does return. So, better still to call the Dark Idiot by the name his mother gave him, and not the one he made up himself. Or make up your own. Frankly, I'm rather fond of calling him Moldyshorts, the Dark Wanker, and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Smelled." 

A burst of grins and giggling all around, which relieved laughter was exactly the sort of response I'd sought. 

It was a good feeling to be able to do things like that! 

Anyway, gracing them all with congratulatory grins, I pontificated more. "In his search for immortality, Tom Riddle tore apart his own soul and placed bits of it in priceless relics, objects that he felt no one could ever bear to destroy, and while those objects existed, he could not be permanently killed." I raise the cup again, weakly. "This, as I said, is one of them. However," I gave them all a saucy wink. "Tom didn't reckon on me. I have found a way to break those spells he cast to seal his soul fragments into those objects he chose, and transfer them into easily disposable ones." 

On making that comment I decided to rewrite the appropriate section of the book I was preparing on Voldemort, using a suitably edited version of this conversation as my source, instead of a too-accurate version I feared I now had, which while illustrative to some, might serve others as a 'How To' guide. 

Besides, this way I could toot my own horn a bit, which was very Lockhart. 

I leaned back, giving them all a satisfied stare, disguising the fact that I was too weak to sit up any longer. "Tom Riddle tore off six bits of his soul, five on purpose and one by accident. Of those six, I have already sought out and destroyed three, and two more are in this room. This cup is one of them." 

Harry froze, eyes getting wide. His family leaned in toward him to comfort him, all those bright minds coming to the same conclusion. 

Sadly, I nodded. "Yes, Harry. Tom Riddle didn't intend to put a piece of his rotten, filthy soul inside you, but he didn't intend to die on his own curse after bouncing it off of your face, either." 

I gave them all a very sad, solemn look. "I'm sorry, Harry, that I only became involved in your life after a seer I know of spelled out rather plainly the next several years of your life. Dumbledore arranges for you to be tortured and brutalized, starved and abused and finally mind-raped by his servant Snape until you break and commit suicide." I sighed. "He felt this was necessary to defeat Tom Riddle at last. And so he sacrificed you, like a pawn he controlled, 'for the Greater Good' a phrase he's rather fond of, I'm afraid." 

Harry had paled so badly he was inventing new shades of white. 

His family hardly fared any better. Hermione was actually worse! 

Yes, to my mind, walking openly up to Voldemort and LETTING him kill you counted as suicide! And Albus had even admitted arranging to break Harry to such a degree that he'd be willing to do that. 

Of course, Harry had Author's Fiat to bring him back afterwards. But the situation made a hash out of Trelawnry's prophecy. If Harry had to die for Voldemort to die, but was unable to pass on fully himself while Voldemort lived because of the blood connection used in his resurrection ritual, then instead of "Neither can LIVE while the other survives" it ought to have been "Neither can DIE while the other survives!" because that matched the actual facts on the ground Rowling had written out! 

But, then, I wouldn't put it passed Rowling to have Dumbledore lie about the actual contents of the prophecy. I mean, he'd lied about everything else! 

I actually chuckled, breaking the spirit of gloom rather sharply. "Oh! But it was all UNNECESSARY!! Harry! You only have to cast a single spell to remove the fragment of the Dark Lord's ugly soul from out of your body! That will put an end to feeling pains from your scar and allow it to be healed properly at last! You'd sever your connection to him permanently! And stop having those dreadful dreams - like do you recall the one from early on in your first year at Hogwarts? The first night you slept in the Gryffindor dormitory as I recall, you had a nightmare about Quirrel's turban on your head, demanding that you insist on being re-Sorted into Slytherin! Harry! THINK!! That turban was what concealed Voldemort! You had a twinge in your scar every time that teacher looked at you, and the spirit of your enemy was trying to command you in that dream to enter the house where he could most easily reach you!" 

Harry's jaw had fallen open and one hand had flown up to finger his scar, as his family reacted in varying degrees of shock and horror. 

But I stopped them before they could freak out about it too terribly much. "That bit of Voldy's soul was the reason the Sorting Hat wanted to put you in Slytherin. All of that ENDS when you cast a spell I have in a book in this house right now!" I snapped my fingers and sent Bella for it. 

There was a fierce fire of resolve in her eyes as she brought it. 

"Secrets of the Darkest Art?" Moria read from the cover, her elder siblings being too deeply gone in shock right now for talking. 

I nodded. "Yes, Moria. Good girl. You see, this is the book on how to create those soul anchors Tom Riddle is using, and I had to find a copy to see how to undo them. There was actually a copy of this book in the Hogwarts library, and that is where our enemy learned how to do this. But Dumbledore, who has had access to this book since he was a teenager, never bothered to decode those spells to do as I have done and create an alternate method of destroying them." 

I returned my attention to Harry, who now clutched the open copy of the book. "Okay Harry, in its simplest form, to create a soul-anchor a wizard first has to tear his soul into pieces, creating a fragment which he can then implant in an object to create an anchor. He does this by committing an act of murder. Then he casts the spell before you to do the actual implanting. HOWEVER," I raised a very stern hand and matched it with a gaze. "You are not going to be doing anything ill intentioned. You are not trying to achieve immortality, or the very false illusion of it this gives. NO, all you want to do is expel that piece of Voldemort that he once lodged inside you. So you will not commit murder. You will not do anything of the sort. There is no need." I stated forcefully, then followed it up with a smile. "All you want to do is expel that bit of his soul already inside you, not tear your own to pieces." 

Nods all around. Good. 

I gave them a very comforting expression and tones. "Yours is still whole and we all want it to remain that way. However, that spell I marked on the page the book is open to is designed to take a soul fragment, created by murder, and take it out of you to put it into something else. All of my research says that if you cast that spell alone, then the fragment of foreign soul already inside of you will be what is taken away, leaving your own still whole and undamaged - and more importantly the only tenant in your body. We can then destroy whatever object you put Riddle's soul piece into. I've been using those ugly coffee mugs you'll find on the shelf over there." 

I met all of their gazes, then asked directly, "Are we sure we understand each other? All Harry is doing here is cleaning house, removing what should never have been put into him in the first place. Right?" 

I got some rather weak nods, and 'right's. But that was to be expected, they were already emotionally exhausted by the tragedy of their family breaking up earlier that day. The Dragon Slave spell and Death Eater revealed soon after were great shocks, but drawing on a nearly dry well. 

It was amazing they weren't all passing out on me, I'm afraid. It looked like the whole crowd of them were only awake due to the adrenaline rushes. 

"Good," I sighed. "Because this is something that can never be mentioned to ANYONE! That book is not kidding when it calls this process 'The Darkest Art' and you cannot pause or explain things to crowds. If anyone catches so much as a rumor that Harry has ever cast that spell, the entire world will jump out of their seats to hunt him down like he was Voldemort all over again. They'll take it that badly, and won't pause or listen to us explain how he was never doing any evil, just undoing some harm that was done to him." 

I caught all of their eyes. "This has got to be our own private little victory over Tom Riddle. We'll never be able to put this in a book, I'm afraid." I gave them all a wry grin that turned into a yawn. "Most people must never know that Harry even had this problem." I then waved with the hand that wasn't covering my mouth. "Harry, if you please?" 

Startled, the boy nodded. Bellatrix had already brought him a coffee mug. Once she did so, I motioned her close and had her transfigure both mugs into frogs, then had her cast the spell to transfer Voldy's soul piece from Helga's cup to one paralyzed frog. 

I then Obliviated it down to nothing (something that made my eyes cross and me nearly pass out from dizziness over severe magical strain) and then she finished it off with an Avada Kedavra. 

After collecting the fallen out memories. 

I was nearly in la-la-land, so did nothing more than contemplate my own haze while Bellatrix carefully taught Harry how to cast the spell. Once he did, she did the Obliviation of the second paralyzed frog herself before finishing it off with another Avada Kedavra. 

I passed out, flopping down on my covers, unable to bear with the magical strain. Then it was apparently 'Family Bed' time, as Bellatrix simply enlarged the couch and covers and everyone crawled in with me like a pile of puppies. 

We slept like the dead, too. 

OoOoO 

I woke up in the morning to the smell of breakfast being prepared, and shot out from under my covers like a hungry wolf to go feed. Somewhere along the way I'd noticed that there was a pile of humanity where I'd been asleep, but thought nothing of it. There are times when it is very comforting to children to be able to crawl in the same beds as their parents, and apparently they'd all elected this as one of those times. 

This better not happen too often. I'd had a brother who let his kids climb in to their parent's bed as toddlers seeking the comfort of having mom and dad close all of the time - and they'd nearly been ten before he could get them to sleep in their own rooms again. 

Sort of thing made it hard to give your kids any siblings. 

I don't know why Miranda and Bellatrix crawled in, though. But since they did, and all of the adults were in one place, the children seeking comfort from the presence of those responsible grown-ups would follow. 

Or, so I supposed. 

Once having calmed the raging beast within my stomach somewhat, I settled down to have a real breakfast with the rest of the family, thinking nothing of eating what was essentially two meals, one on top of the other. At least Lina's table manner's weren't rubbing off on me. 

The family was neither talkative nor happy, having been emotionally worn out by severe shocks from three different directions now. So, seeing no better remedy for it, I bundled everyone into 'Sunday Going To Meeting' clothes and hustled us all off together to church. 

Tonks joined us on our way out. 

Muggle London was in a somewhat orderly state of chaos. Traffic lights were not working, but most cars did (having been off at the time of the explosion or shielded by their own metal housings or garages or the like), so the roads were a nightmare. Bobbies were out in force to keep down the looting, and I had to suppress a grin at the statement of the fallibility of human nature when I saw several cops that were actually doing some looting of their own. 

Security features like cameras, alarms and so on had all been disabled by the EMP, so some adventurous individuals were making themselves free with the contents of banks or jewelry stores. 

A free wheeling, party atmosphere prevailed. 'Anything Goes' and 'Devil May Care' attitudes seemed to be the rule of the day. 

And, unlike when the riots happened in Los Angeles, here there were no shop owners with guns to sit on their own rooftops to prevent the ransacking. 

Stopping in briefly at a convenience store, I bought a generic envelope and paper and typed a quick note to the muggle prime minister, saying "Aha! Now you have had a taste of my power! If you do not pay my thirty four pounds and eleven pence in parking fees, I will nuke the city again! MWAHAHAHAHA!!!" And sticking it with a stamp dropped it in the mail. 

Yes, sometimes my good humor does overcome my good judgment. But NOT so far as to leave fingerprints or saliva on that letter! 

It was a joke, but governments have absolutely no sense of humor. 

I even had Dora cast a Scourgify on it for me, to remove any trace of hair or skin cells, or dust, or... well, anything really. I'd have done it myself but my hair was still white and I didn't feel like taking a nap right then, right there. Besides, I was saving what energy I had for later. 

Needless to say, I didn't owe any parking fees. 

Then it was off to church, which I think did everyone alot of good, as it gave exactly what they needed - tools to deal with their shock and grief. I even grabbed the bishop, taking him aside long enough to ask for a promise to be willing to listen to Bellatrix' confession after she turned herself in. 

From church, it was straight to the Ministry, with Bella under one of my invisibility cloaks until we got to the appropriate office. Once we'd all gotten in to see Amelia Bones, Bella surrendered herself into custody in exchange for a promise of another trial, and I placed the information I had, namely about the insanity caused by the pleasure/pain reversal spell, into Amelia's hands, who promised to have someone look into it, but it had good prospects of getting her off with time already served. 

Albus in particular had a weak spot for villains attempting redemption. So it had an excellent chance of being a quick yet successful trial. 

Then I took a moment to snag the previously engaged bishop, pop him in to hear her confession in her cell, leave instructions with the guards on how and where to return him when they were done, then it was off to Godric's Hollow to see the Potter House, war memorial, and some graves. 

It was a good time to reconnect to Harry's family, soothing somewhat the wounds of all as they helped him to reach and resolve that deep ache JKR had only ever made worse for the poor lad. 

By my deliberate intent, we started at the gravestones. I'd carefully made sure each of us were bearing gifts to lay upon their graves. On our way past I pointed out the markers for Dumbledore's mother and sister, mentioning off the cuff how that family had once lived there (and letter everyone else draw from that the conclusion that Dumbledore had never told them, never made that connection with Harry when Harry was desperate for connections) and once we arrived at Lily and James' grave I promptly gave a little service for the benefit of Harry, drawing on experience and material from the many funerals I'd been to, including my youngest brother's, my son's, and also my grandmother's, as well as ones recalled from my stolen memories. 

It was cathartic, as those things are meant to be. 

Feeling a little drained, everyone tromped out at last and I steered us by the war memorial, where we looked on the happy faces of the once living Potter family immortalized there in stone. After that it was on to the house. 

I was very careful to take our tour in that order, from the lowest point to the highest, as, once we'd reached the partially ruined building, I gave Harry a gentle instruction to open the yard gate and house door. 

Once inside, we started fixing everything. 

A Sea Witch, unsurprisingly, lives on salvage to a very great degree, and the sea is a very unforgiving place to most materials. So drawing on her skills and knowledge it was easy to restore the ten plus years of weather damage the house had taken, being exposed to the wind and rain. Due to the nature of those skills restoring the burned out roof and walls was also quite easy for me, as things often burned while sinking, and this was something a proper sea witch learned to deal with long ago. 

I was fortunate indeed it was easy, as I still wasn't up to much. 

I had hoped, this whole trip long, that the act of being here and restoring his parents' home from ruin, collecting their things and reveling in the memories long since denied him would assist Harry in overcoming some large part of his grief over losing them. 

Sealing those wounds to his parents' home also did a good deal toward curing those injuries inflicted on Harry's soul. And, as I had hoped, helping Harry to overcome that grief of loss, and restore his parents' home was also helping the former Grangers deal with their own peculiar family-related griefs, setting them aside to help Harry. 

A wonderful thing about good deeds, the benefit they gave was contagious. 

The rest of our day was spent there, finding photographs and journals, baby things Harry had long forgotten, and putting it all in order while Harry went about learning more of his family, home, and first year of life than he'd ever imagined. Dora even helped us to make dinner in the Potter's kitchen, and we ate on china and silverware they'd once used, around the table in the dining room of their home. 

Before this, I had magically reinforced Harry's memories of his first year of life, and since then we had often had occasion to visit, in the memories of Horace Slughorn and Minerva McGonagall, more about his family, but being there, finding mementos and things we'd remembered from those made it all turn from a number of insubstantial dreams into a comforting reality. 

We were here. We knew these people, in a sense, and finding their belongings under his eagerly questing fingers was doing Harry a world of good. 

In that way we spent the entire week. 

It was a small home for so large a crowd of us, but no worse than my condo, really. After our first evening there we started to get guests, visitors from the magical part of the village. Often they would tell us stories or regale us with their own memories of the Potters. 

Thankfully, I'd brought along my pensieve, so once a choice bit got mentioned we could make a request for that guest to take it out so we could all view it. 

And, to our amusement and sometimes our visitor's horror, sometimes that caused them to back down from an exaggeration or falsehood they'd been making. But most often we got to enjoy precious scenes of the lives of our little dark haired hero's family, filling in much more of what we knew of them. 

By the second day, the kids had even taken to questing about town to seek and find out people who'd known the Potters so they could interview them and discover more material we could view in our pensieve. 

And they scored some real catches. Professor Flitwick was there visiting friends, and from him they wheedled out the Marauder's years of Charms classes. They uncovered former teammates of James, so they got those Gryffindor Quidditch matches he'd played for (first as Chaser, then in later years as a Seeker) along with all of the after game parties. 

It had been three subjective weeks since I'd imbibed any foreign memories, and would you believe I'd begun to miss it? It was a relief to start pouring more knowledge into my head once again, believe me. 

Having got Flitwick we took a morning and tracked down their Astronomy teacher and Kettleburn as donors, getting their Care of Magical Creatures studies on top of everything else (a class all of the Marauders took, seeing as how one of their number was a werewolf). 

Bathilda Bagshot came as a surprise to me, as she'd not only been the history teacher during those Marauding days (their first four years, anyway, before her cataracts got so bad she could no longer see to read and thus grade papers, so Binns took over that position, as boring alive as he'd later prove to be as a ghost) but she'd also dropped by Lily and James Potter most days to see to the young family and regale them with stories. And the woman was a frightfully good storyteller. She could even get me to spray my milkshakes on occasion with a cunning remark and careful timing. 

Getting her to share those memories (which included her regaling young Lily and James with tales of a young Albus Dumbledore, thus more than tripling our knowledge of the man) was a real treasure. 

The old lady also had a wicked sense of humor. 

It was, all told, a good and productive week for dealing with grief, setting down roots and feeling you had a family. Toward the end of which Miranda, who had been a quiet shadow of her former self all of this time, approached me, wiping tears from her eyes, and asking, "Gilderoy, now more than ever I am convinced the children need a male role model in their lives. And, since I've known you longer than anybody, and you are so good at dealing with them... I was wondering... well?" 

She swallowed, turning hopeful eyes up to me. "Would you please, I mean... would you give them all 'The Talk'? It's time they ought to know." 

OoOoO 

I think it broke some sort of record that I was able to give 'The Talk' to a mixed audience of children without blushing, hesitating or pausing once, that I did it with in complete good humor and without a hint of embarrassment. 

It really wasn't that big a deal to me, although I did get enjoyment over how the kids squirmed at parts. 

"Okay," I said, once I'd gotten them all sitting down together facing me. "Your mother has asked me to give you a lesson commonly referred to as 'The Birds and The Bees', that basically answers the simple question: Where do babies come from?" 

There were even some nods at this point. Well, I hadn't gotten to anything embarrassing yet. 

I smiled to encourage them. "Okay, it boils down to something I can illustrate with a simple comparison. You're all very good at Potions by now. Babies are made from two ingredients, one that boys create inside their bodies, and one that girls create in theirs. The girl has a soft cauldron tucked inside her tummy, the boy has a rod that hangs outside of a corresponding place. You stir the cauldron with the rod, the ingredients mix and a baby is made. Sometimes a couple will have to try that process several times, sometimes it works on the first attempt." 

Hermione raised her hand, pinking slightly and with a weird quasi-smile on her lips. 

"Yes, Hermione?" 

She dropped her hand and asked, "That's a little vague, isn't it?" 

I nodded, smiling for her. "Yes, Hermione, it is, deliberately so. Most people have great difficulty discussing the subject without embarrassment, so we start with only the most vague description. Do you think you are all ready for the next level of detail?" 

All eager nods once again. 

"Good." I leaned forward, lacing my hands together before I released them to pick up a sock one of the girls had discarded on the floor as they'd all taken off their shoes earlier. I held it dangling, so that the top was an open, round hole. "The cauldron in a girl's tummy is called a womb, and if you could see it it looks a lot like this sock I am holding." The sock was, in fact, pink. "The entrance to this is between the girls legs, only the hole is squeezed shut to look like this." I pinched the round hole at the top of the sock to a straight, thin line, closing the opening. 

"Now the boy parts aren't hidden, except by clothes," I continued. "But the rod I mentioned isn't too different looking to a finger, only I am told average for adults is about six inches long and about as big around as a banana. You heat the cauldron to the appropriate temperature for mixing babies by giving the girl kisses and touching her bikini places. Then the boy places the rod into the cauldron like so," I put my finger into the sock, "and stirs with an in and out motion. This feels very good, so good in fact that once you start it is very difficult to stop. This brings us to our next subject, which is marriage." 

I put down the sock, as it had served its purpose as a visual aid, and did my best to pretend not to notice all of those little blushes all around. Hermione was worst of all even as she attempted studious attention. 

I gazed at them with loving fondness, yet also serious. "The circumstances under which a baby is made are going to influence it for its whole life. A baby has a right to be raised in a loving home environment with both a mother and a father, each of whom are programed by nature to give it different things. Mothers are very concerned with seeing that babies are clean, well fed, warm and safe. This is a good thing. Fathers are also programmed, they want to play with their children. Neither of these approaches are wrong! BOTH are necessary for a child's full development. Children learn things while they play, it is how they develop their minds. Similarly, you wouldn't want their bodies not to be cared for. They need both, and the experts on how to deliver each are naturally programmed to provide them. Trying to substitute will only give you second rate results, as no replacements are as good. A poor start can be compensated for later in life, but it is an initial disadvantage." 

I gazed at them with full seriousness now. "The two things Satan desires to mess up most of all are how people enter this world, and when they leave it. If he can see to it that we get a terrible start, without a loving family, we are weaker and more susceptible to all sorts of other things. Likewise, when a person is doing good he wants to remove them from this life as soon as possible, to limit the amount of good they can do. Thus, you can expect every circumstance imaginable to try to test you, tempting you to do those things that would bring a baby into this world early, when you aren't prepared to care for it properly. Also, if you are doing well, expect some seemingly random violence as The Enemy of All tries to remove you from life so that you will stop interfering with his plans to hurt other people, mess them and their lives up and generally spread harm and misery." 

My gaze was now sad. "But, in our modern times, Satan has come up with a way to combine both of his favorite strategies. First he tempts people to make babies inappropriately, then he has them destroy those lives in the womb so those little ones have their times cut short to where they can do no good to the rest of us at all!" 

Miranda, who was leaning against the door jam with her arms folded, chose to interrupt with an observation. "You feel strongly on the issue of abortion, don't you?" 

I nodded, returning her gaze. "Yes. My father tried to have me aborted. My mother wouldn't let him, and so here I am." 

Her eyes widened slightly and I returned my attention to the kids before me, several of whom (all of the girls) had gasped at my revelation. 

I now gave them a full on grin. "Fortunately, God is greater than Satan, and can foil him in all of his attempts, IF we give our lives to Him and earnestly strive to follow our Lord's commandments, and that includes His instructions for how and when to bring our children into this world. And the institution He has provided is called Marriage. I'm sure you've heard of it." I finished with a wry grin. 

Lots of nods all around and the blushes and little squirmings from before had quieted down, although not disappeared entirely. 

I sat up straight and taller, slapping my palms onto my knees as I changed the tone of the proceedings. "Good! Now, the way it used to be was that a boy and a girl could meet and a week later marry, going on to live a happy life together for the rest of their stay in mortality. Sadly, this is no longer the case, there are too many poison people out there. Also, we have been divided on practically every issue imaginable, with sharp lines of disagreement on so many sides as to make finding someone who agrees with you on all of them practically impossible. Disagreements are the seed of contention, and that is a force which leads to arguments, which can tear apart even strong couples. So, ideally, it is better to marry young, before you have many of your views as strongly formed, and are more willing to compromise. The older you get, the more set in your ways you become, and the harder it is to give in on things and change so you can get along comfortably together." 

I gave them my finest Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile, raising a finger and angling my head. "But it is also a good idea to have well developed conflict resolution skills. Learn to discuss, not argue. Make points in logical, well reasoned approaches, then allow your partner to do the same. Once you understand each other either the problem will cease to exist or you will at least be able to see where a solution might lie. For example, Miranda, will you join me in a little role-play?" 

I gestured her into the room. 

She came. 

"Good." I stood to face her. "Now, let us pretend we are of different political parties, an issue many feel places them as near mortal enemies. Let us say, for sake of argument alone, that we are both Americans, and belong to the major parties there." 

She nodded. 

"Very well," I nodded, turning my attention fully to Miranda. "Well, the first thing I think we need to establish is that you and I are not stereotypes. I am not all Republicans, just as you are not all Democrats. I am not to blame for everything my party says or does, just as you are not for yours. I am not responsible for all the bad, or the good, that may justly be attributed to the party to which I belong, nor do I necessarily hold all of the same views. We are individuals, not avatars presenting an embodiment of our different parties. Are we agreed on that point?" 

"Yes," she agreed. "I've never believed in stereotypes." 

It was strange, I thought, how many people said that and how few meant it, immediately rushing in to use stereotypes on most any issue. But I ignored that as that wasn't the point I was trying to make now. That was a topic for another time. 

"Good," I smiled with relief. "Now we both believe there are problems with this world, we even see most of the same things as problems. The only difference that lies between us is that we have bought into different lines of logic, presented by our different parties, on how to fix them." 

"Yes," now she was smiling in relief. 

"Excellent!" I turned to look upon the children. "Do you see how this works? Once you have established you are not enemies, you can DISCUSS things! You must never ever approach something like this as a case of 'You are wrong and I must defeat you!' You instead build on common ground. We really don't disagree on the heart and core of the matter: there are problems we both feel should be fixed. Once you can reach common agreement you are on the same side, working together on how to fix things, as opposed to enemies who spend all of their time and effort on defeating each other, while the problems get neglected or grow worse." 

I sighed, setting my hands on my hips before crouching down to speak close to the kids. "Also, learn to tell the difference between what really matters and what doesn't. People also give sports teams the same type of devotion they once gave to their religion. But what does that matter? My being a fan of a cool team is not some type of magic spell that somehow, mysteriously, makes me a better person." 

Seeing Hermione begin to open her mouth, I cut her off. "No. I've looked it up. It doesn't." 

She blushed and mumbled, still showing evidence of being smitten by me. Ah! So that's why she'd been reacting worst of all the kids. I suppose it would be odd to be given 'The Talk' by your crush. 

Girl still had it bad, too. 

Smiling back upon them again, I continued. "Really, sports are a game. They are meant to be fun, not bring fans to blows over which team is best. Who cares? Why should anyone care? I thought the whole thing was meant to be something cool to play or watch. All teams have good points and bad, some even trade players around like you do socks, so enjoy what there is to enjoy and don't be drawn into conflicts that establish nothing! The ills of the world are not all going to be resolved tomorrow if 'my team' wins a match today. Voldemort wasn't defeated by the Holyhead Harpies beating out the Chudley Cannons in a quidditch game, and you shouldn't pretend that he was, or that it has that level of importance." 

I reached out to hold their shoulders, well, two of the three of them anyway. "Even if you owned a team, or had placed a great deal of money in a bet on the encounter, then at most it is an item of personal significance that will even out in the long run anyway. So, try to see things for what they are, and not for what others believe them to be. Do not think dishonestly or fool yourself, as only one who knows what a situation is can truly act to change it." I paused to duck my head and draw in a long breath, raising my gaze to meet them all with a dazzling smile. "Reserve your best efforts for that which truly is most important, because if you can handle those everything else will fall in line." 

I stood back up, gazing down on them all fondly. "Work when it is time to work, play when it is time to play, and marry when it is time to marry. Make room for all the good you can in life and try to eliminate the bad." 

I clapped my hands and grinned at them. "Now, who's up for a visit to Ottery St. Catchpole? I hear you've got a friend there, name of Ron Weasley?" 

OoOoO   
Author's Notes:   
Thanks go to Lionheart for allowing me to borrow a single paragraph of his bird and bees talk, as given in the fic "A Rose At Hogwarts." It was the good part. 


	13. Chapter 13

My Gilded Life   
Chapter Thirteen 

by Skysaber   
based on a challenge forwarded by Lionheart 

OoOoO 

I was feeling rather good about myself. Due to the find the children had made this week in tracking down the former instructors of Harry's parents, we had accumulated a good chunk of their school years, at least as far as classes go. The only subjects were we really missing were Herbology and Defense Against the Dark Arts, plus a few electives outside of the almost universally taken Care of Magical Creatures. 

The DADA course, involving as it did so many different teachers, would be almost impossible to track down from a professor's standpoint. Fortunately for us, by now we knew virtually all of the classmates of Harry's parents, so it might be possible to get our missing bits from one of them. 

Almost incidentally, we'd picked up a nearly complete Hogwarts education just in our quest to get to know Harry's parents better, only lacking a few years on a couple of subjects. 

And Bagshot's History of Magic classes were an absolute hoot! She'd made that the most interesting subject at the school, bar none! Not even Quidditch was more fun, to most students, than listening to that old woman spin tales. 

Such a gifted storyteller... it was crime that she couldn't teach any more! 

Anyway, having realized I had no time to do the research myself, I scribed a quick letter to send off to the Flamels explaining certain muggle treatments on eye problems and their theories of what was wrong in each case, asking if they wouldn't be so good as to research cures for me. 

Because, perhaps, if we could cure Bathilda's cataracts, she could go back to teaching! 

Also, we could cure Harry's dependence on eyeglasses, and that would be a good thing all by itself, as any material dependence was a weakness that could potentially be exploited by an enemy. 

Sending that off by owl, and feeling pretty good about myself, we apparated to Ottery St. Catchpole and began to walk out of town in search of the Burrow, on our way passing an electronics store with some televisions going in the big plate glass window. 

The volume was up and a crowd had formed, listening to the news. 

"In other news," the lady was saying. "The city has received a ransom note, saying that we must pay his thirty four pounds and eleven pence in parking fees, or he will nuke the city again. A fund has been made available, so if the person involved would send information identifying which fees those are..." 

"Wait a moment, Stacy." Her co-anchor interrupted. "How do we know our mysterious note-sender is male? I've read a copy of that letter, and nothing in it shows one way or the other..." 

The lady newsie tapped her papers together on the desk to interrupt, then spoke, "Our psychologists have identified the deranged cackling within as written in a male pattern. Although, if the ransom-holder is female, we will still be glad to oblige her in paying any..." 

I turned away, torn between feeling sick or amusement. 

Behind me I found Gomez and his family, applauding me. "Bravo! Old chap, Bravo!" Gomez came forward and shook my hand. "Frightfully stylish. I wish I had thought of it first. Any chance you could let us in on your next one?" 

I stood, paralyzed with... something, and gave him a sickly grin in return. "Well... I was thinking of violating a grave later..." 

"Excellent!" Gomez clapped me on a shoulder. "Don't forget to drop us a line! Now do excuse us, we hear they've got a meat packing plant nearby and we were going to drop by and ask if they could process Pugsley. Cheers!" 

"He's been asking for it as a late birthday present." Morticia added, before turning to follow right behind her husband. 

With a jaunty wave, the Addams family departed. 

"Gilderoy," Hermione ground out, "Was that an Addams?" 

"Yes," I nodded, still too stunned for a complete response. 

She nodded too. "Would you mind explaining how you came to be friends with one of the darkest of all magical families in the history of our world?" 

The rest of her family seemed fascinated by this question as well. 

"It was kind of an accident," I returned, still watching where that family had departed. 

"How do you accidentally make friends with the Addams family?" She asked again, supported by nods from her mother and sister, who also wanted to know the answer to that question. 

"I dressed up as one of them to pull off a caper that helped me search out several of those soul anchors I destroyed." I shrugged. "And they sought me out to tell me how impressed they were and..." I swallowed, loosening my suddenly too-tight collar which had always fit perfectly before. "Well, after showing they knew about what I'd done, they... sort of adopted me." 

I gave the girl and her family a sickly grin. 

Their eyes were wide. 

"That's sort of, like, accidentally becoming the Minister of Magic, only in a dark way," Hermione observed. "They're among the richest and oldest of all families, and they're so powerful they'd probably be ruling England by now if they hadn't chosen to emigrate to the United States so long ago." 

"What can I say? They were impressed." I tossed off the comment, on recovering some of my panache. Then I changed the subject. "But enough of that for now! What's say we all go find ourselves some Weasleys?" 

They gave me some guarded nods, showing that this discussion wasn't over yet, but they all agreed and it wasn't too long before we stopped in at the Burrow. 

The kids ran off together, abandoning us adults to talk to each other. Molly was all excited that Dumbledore had asked her to join the Hogwarts staff this year as teacher of their new elective on Household Magic - and Harry was quick to point out that I'd been the one to suggest for him to do it. 

This got me a Weasley mother squeeze that caught me quite off guard and had me seeing spots before my eyes before she rushed off to the kitchen for a round of celebratory baking. 

It wasn't ten minutes into our visit however that Ron got into a terrible row with the kids we'd brought with us. 

The youngest Weasley boy (the girl, having come down stairs to see Harry was visiting, had just as quickly gone back up to vanish into her room), Ron, had made one of his typical thoughtless comments and this time instead of just Hermione leaping in to correct him, it was her plus Harry and Moria. 

Ron had responded as usual, and instead of launching a bickering argument with just her alone, it was him against the three of them. I'd guess they'd all rubbed off on each other more than I'd supposed. 

Anyway, I was just concluding a deal with the twins to fund their joke shop in a silent partnership that contained a proviso that we got to be taught some of the secrets of magic they'd uncovered, when Ron, who had started off with an insensitive comment or two that rapidly escalated up to the usual argumentativeness he had with Hermione, realized that not only was Harry NOT backing him, he was taking her side. 

Well, that was the final straw for Ron Weasley, who made a cutting remark or two about how if Harry didn't want any friends, he could hang around with Granger all he liked. Then he ran upstairs to hide in his room. 

And that was the end of the trio. I should have seen it coming. 

Soon I had three children by my side, looking up at me to do something. I gave a sad sigh, so they voiced it in words. "Can't you do something?" 

I shook my head. "I am not going to change who Ron Weasley is. And this is, sadly, VERY typical of him." 

"Could you please explain? It doesn't seem like him at all." Harry observed in very Hermione-like tones. 

"Very well," I nodded then sat on a stool to get down to their level. "At his heart and core, Ron is a very jealous person. It's not that he doesn't want to be good, or have a hint of gold hidden inside, but mostly as the youngest boy he feels very squashed flat by the shadow of his brothers. He feels that it is next to impossible for him to outshine them. After all, they've been Head Boy and prefects before him, a Quidditch Captain, and then of course Fred and George are both innovative and popular. So Ron feels that every important slot he could reach for has been filled before he got there. That leaves him feeling very much shut out of success by the victories they've had before him." 

I looked to Harry and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Then he met you, Harry, and for the first time in his life he felt he could be something they hadn't done before him. He could be the friend of the Boy Who Lived. The trouble there was, he'd never given up on the jealousy that made him want to outshine his brothers in the first place. So he started to apply that jealousy to you. After all, you had fame and were rich, a good Quidditch player... no, he began to see you as a rival to be beaten as much as a friend. Then, of course, there is Hermione, who excels at everything, and makes his small accomplishments seem very tame by comparison. Now, all of a sudden, he sees you and Hermione being close and sharing traits, each of you being even more accomplished than before, and his jealousy can't take it. Now he's not only being outshone by his brothers, but by his friends." I sighed ducking my head. "Of course this has nothing to do with how he has a middle name that means anger and peevishness." I mumbled aloud, thinking Rowling COULDN'T be telegraphing anything with that move. No, not ever! 

"How can we make it up to him?" Moria asked. 

"I'm sure that's such a good idea," I clucked. 

"But we've got to!" both former friend of Ron's chorused. 

I gave a very apprehensive shake of my head, looking up the stairs in the direction Ron had gone. "It might be best just to let him go." 

Harry's gaze matched Hermione's, in that both were level and serious. "You know something else, don't you? Tell us!" 

I heaved a sigh. "Yes, well, according to the Seer I told you about, Ron later gets into jealous fits and turns his back on your friendship more than once, but worst of all was later he gets hold of a book on how to magically control girls, and soon thereafter he is having sex with Hermione - in spite of never having been even slightly decent to her before or said one kind remark to her in all his years of knowing her." 

There came a crash from behind me, and we all turned around to find that Molly had dropped a bowl she'd been mixing batter in, and that she, plus Fred and George, who'd been there all along, were now white-faced. 

Oh dear. Had they been listening all this time? Yes, I could see they were. I raised both of my hands in a placating gesture. "Now, there's no reason to say he still would... it's just, so far that seer hasn't been wrong before. So..." my mind halted and I ran out of comforting statements. 

"RONALD BILIUS WEASLEY!!" Molly went storming upstairs in a fiery temper. 

"He's going to be grounded..." one of the twins muttered. 

"...til he's an old greybeard." the other finished for his brother. 

I gave a slight shrug. "I wonder what your mother would do to the pair of you if I told her that, according that same seer, it was the two of you that got that book to him?" 

The twins shared a terrified look of fright, and I chuckled to take the sting out of it. Let them think my words had been a prank. 

Then Molly's shouting began and I felt a pang of guilt. Okay, Ron had been a complete waste case those last few books, and he hadn't contributed much in the middle, but toward the end of her books Rowling hadn't had ANY heroes left to her series! She'd tarnished them all to the point that by the end there wasn't one you could honestly respect. And, well, that destroyed all of the enjoyment many of her fans had in her universe. 

So, since I was doing my best to steer Harry and Hermione away from their own destructions, why not Ron as well? 

Getting an idea, I jogged up the stairs, following the sounds of Molly's shouts until I found Ron's room. The poor boy, already angry at his friends, had been ambushed by his mother and was now being well and truly scolded on what was right and wrong about how to treat girls. 

I knocked lightly on the doorframe to let Molly know I was there. 

"I was thinking I might have an answer to your problem, or part of it anyway," I jauntily waved my cane as I walking in to the room. Smiling, I sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the put-upon boy. "I'll let your mother teach you proper morals and treatment of women. I'm just up here to offer you a possible solution to feeling overshadowed by your brothers. What do you say to putting in an application to transfer to Beubaxtons? All of your older brothers have been Hogwarts students, so if you are looking for a way to break free of the paths they've tred, that might be your answer. A place to be yourself, with none of the reputations they've left behind to struggle against. It's something to think about." I gave him a cheerful grin. "But if you do agree to try I'll make a personal plea to Madam Maxine, the Headmistress there, to accept you. I'll even fund your change of school supplies, all new equipment and only the best, eh?" 

Standing up, starting for the door (and finding it full of children of both families, crowded in and listening), I turned back around to face Ron. "Oh, and one more thing," I told him with disarming charm. 

Driving a hand into one of my pouches, I pulled forth a shrunken, paralyzed spider and threw it into a corner of the room, unshrinking it to its full size, whereupon it filled the room. "This is the acromantula I'll feed you to if you EVER molest or magically control Hermione," I told him with a friendly grin. 

Ron turned yellow, blubbered, and wet himself. 

I reshrunk my spider, put it back in my pouch, and left with a jaunty wave, pausing in the doorway just long enough to say, "Oh, and of course that applies to Moria, too. She'll be joining us at Hogwarts this year, you know." 

Molly's loud voiced scolding resumed as I left the two behind. 

OoOoO 

Having recently lost family, and now the whole issue with Ron, I felt it was about time for us to distract ourselves from such situations, and the best way to do that I knew of was to film something! 

So we headed out to the States, where there was cheap land to be had and a few contacts who could help us. 

Spinning back a week, I made sure to drop by Hogwarts to pick up my bottles of carefully preserved acromantula pieces, empty out the DADA office and teachers quarters so I could go through Quirrel's stuff in my down times to see what he'd left us, and picked up a small case of memories from Albus, who'd prepared them for the upcoming History course. 

I immediately drank down his duel with Grindelwald, as that was one of the best wizard on wizard battles in recorded history and I needed those skills! The rest of Gilderoy's combat collection focused more on battling creatures, which, while still tremendously useful, wasn't all that could be learned. Plus, they focused on entirely different principles! 

Then I sent off a note to Dumbledore asking if he couldn't replace that vial, saying it had gotten damaged while being moved (and I had drunk it while on my way out), and while he was at it could he fill in some gaps I'd noticed? 

Him taking his OWL and NEWT tests for one, to sate my scholastic curiosity. 

Granted, me and the former Granger family had near complete Hogwarts educations from what we'd learned hunting down the Marauder's time there, and as several geniuses working together we were already doing an excellent job of piecing together bits and extrapolating on others, still we'd only just viewed everything and didn't have the sheer amount of TIME required to think things through to their maximal extent and come up with new ideas. 

So if Albus was actually trusting or vain enough to show us copies of his OWL and NEWT tests, on which he'd done simply amazing things according to one of his former test moderators, I could then absorb those, gain those skills, and pass them on to the former Grangers; which would give us a substantial leg up, a head start I, for one, intended to use to its fullest in my continuing efforts at reeducation to make up for the original Gilderoy's lazy attitude! 

And, well, the wizard I was most worried about being attacked by was Albus, so if I had some small portion of his skill, then at least I'd have a better chance to survive until I could scurry away with my tail between my legs. 

Note sent, then we were off to our much needed vacation! 

I laid down several options, filming or not filming, what to film if they wanted to, etc, and what they selected to do was film Star Trek, the original series, one of my personal favorites. Okay, so the effects sucked compared to later versions. What did that matter? After all, wasn't that one of those things it was easy enough for us to fix? 

Being a metamorph, I would be both Kirk and Scotty, as those were the most fun and rarely enough shared screen time so I could fudge the rest. Miranda would be our Spock because she really was nearly that smart, and we could use a charm to aid her on the emotionlessness. The kids got to divide up the bridge crew slots among themselves, and did so with great gusto (and a drop of two of aging potion while on screen), while Dora got stuck as the most emotional role, which was also the easiest to play, and so became Bones, aka Dr. McCoy (plus a bunch of short skirted ensigns and alien princesses in exotic costumes, as required). 

We rewrote alot of the scripts to eliminate plot holes and continuity errors, played a bit with the setting, and eliminated some stupid stuff that really could have been done better. We also borrowed extensively from fandom and thought through many of the aspects of the show that had never been properly developed for one reason or another. 

Basically, we learned from their mistakes on our remake of it. Hey, I even let the kids write their own episodes! And if those happened to turn out better than some of the stuff done by guest directors the first time through, how could that be called my fault? 

More than a few aliens who strangely shrunk our bridge crew down to kids got encountered along the way. But that only showed our youngsters were getting into it. So our efforts had already served their true purpose. 

Since Larry Niven had never existed (or I should not say existed, he'd never WRITTEN anything) here, I could take selected portions of his Known Space material like the Man-Kzin wars, and Ringworld, and just roll that into our version of Star Trek, once we'd suitably altered them to suit our tastes and match backgrounds, of course. 

Since we were short on actors, not wanting to include too many other people in what was to be for us simply a non-stress, downtime activity, aliens were actually better suited to our scripts than other humans were, and there was no need whatsoever for actors in alien costumes as we could do animated transfigurations of statues into the appropriate roles. 

They were even remarkably good about following directions, too. And the very awkwardness of them having no natural mannerisms or reactions of their own could be made to play up their essential alienness. For robot, machine or cyborg type baddies, we'd leave them with few instructions for that and let their very blankness serve as part of the role. 

For other aliens? Well, it wasn't too difficult to get transfigured Kzinti to act like cats or our Gorn like lizards. And, whichever ones of us weren't currently serving as the crew of the Enterprise could switch costumes to be Romulans or Klingon. A touch of magical makeup or disguises and you'd never know. 

Drawing on several generations of cell phone designs, we made our communicators much more realistic. And, owing to a statement made by Ollivander in the last book, I knew it WAS possible to have magical foci that were not wands. So using some of my many memories I was able to track down a person able to make such a device, and got us all special rings to serve us in that purpose. 

This also made faking our phasors really easy. With charms on our rings so they didn't show, we simply held our toy phasors and wordlessly cast stun spells. This was great practice for us and the kids, as none of us had any ability at wordless casting but it was an excellent thing to learn and this gave us a perfect excuse to work on eliminating words and gestures, using a very simple and basic spell to practice on. 

Until we got it right, we'd just cut out of the film any words or gestures we made, splicing together the 'point' with the 'shoot'. 

And, for things we hit on 'disintegrate' power we'd use stunt doubles made of stacks of methane bubbles and covered with an illusion to seem real. One hit with a very minor flame spell and they'd disintegrate quite nicely and realistically, writhing as they did so. 

Although we did introduce body armor and other things that was not subject to the cascading reaction of a phasor or disrupter set to disintegrate, just to avoid having too many plot holes or easy solutions. 

Before we'd started filming, though, I went to my case of stolen memories and did a little looking over the collection, as I knew I had plenty of time to be absorbing some. But I was surprised at how thin the selection had become! 

Aside from Death Eater memories I'd collected myself (Pettigrew and a post grad Tom Riddle among them - although Bellatrix' attempt to get the mind of the old Tom Riddle segment removed from Harry had been botched, and she'd gotten the frog's mind instead), and Lockhart's selection of musicians and artists whose work he'd admired (and wanted to see for free), there wasn't much left in there that I hadn't already absorbed. 

There was a team of six that he'd all Obliviated at once, hoping to steal their joint accomplishments to make a book, but that had turned out to be not a viable idea as there was too much interpersonal activity as part of the story. Lockhart had even forgotten what story he'd wanted to copy from them, so I didn't even get what they'd done in my download of his original memories. 

Then there was one set of life experiences that had curdled somewhat, and he hadn't been able to view properly in a pensieve, like a television with too much static. There had been staticy moments in many of the rest of his set, but those had all been fairly brief glitches. Often enough they'd been enough to stop him from copying those stories into book form, but had made sense when I put them into my brain, so I was fairly confident that I could take a small sample and figure out what the whole meant, but at present I didn't know what that set of memories even was, so was loathe to try it. 

Only two were left. One was a thief who had accosted my predecessor on his one trip to Africa (trying to find material for a book that had never happened - Near Miss With A Nundu, trying to inflate his reputation by having survived a close encounter with a near invincible beast that wiped out whole villages. His trouble there had been finding an actual survivor who had anything even slightly heroic to say about the encounter, as it wouldn't help Lockhart's reputation any to have a book that amounted to 'I shrieked like a little girl and ran away'... which is what those few survivors had often done). 

The other was of a Greek Ministry of Magic official, older than Dumbledore, who had moved around alot after that whole mess with Grindelwald, and had caught onto the schemes my predecessor was running and tried to blackmail him. His body was still in the long term care ward of St. Mungo's, and I'd been debating the morality of returning the old guy's memories to him or not. 

A quick look in them, and I decided not, as the guy had fled mainland Europe to go to Peru, where the crowds screaming for revenge for his deeds as one of the senior followers of Gellert Grindelwald had failed to follow him. 

But the guy had a ton of skills I might later want. He'd been heavily involved in the Greek magical creatures regulatory agency and had a part in running their preserves and breeding programs, up until a scandal had driven him out of public office. Then he had moved across the Med to Egypt for a few years where he fell in with odd crowds and became a carpet maker of sorts before returning to his native Greece to take on work with a wandmaker, before he fell in with Grindelwald's cronies and became their specialist in crafting odd magical artifacts of all sorts. 

Including crafting a set of secret vaults, interestingly enough. Long since emptied by the victorious forces, of course, but still interesting to have done. 

Fleeing Europe on the fall of Grindelwald, he'd gone to South America to rest and wait until the furor had died down, getting back into his old businesses rather quickly. My predecessor had gone there seeking stories, done some shady trades with the old man, and the former dark follower had followed the original Gilderoy back to England, thinking since he had the dirt on the boy he could make this young punk do anything he liked. 

And instead the Greek refugee had caught a full force Obliviate in the face. The closest my predecessor had ever come to getting caught doing his dirty deeds, short of that fiasco at Hogwarts that now wasn't going to happen. 

The Greek was a thoroughly disreputable scoundrel through most of his life, but always the greedy, whiny sort of evil who made for a great toady, not ever a leader of men, just a background hanger on and scavenger, much like Mundungus Fletcher and Pettigrew in that aspect. 

No strength of will at all, so I could probably absorb those memories at some point without too much fear of corruption. So long as I did so slowly it should be safe, seeing as I had far much more strength of personality than he. 

But now was not the appropriate time. I was in the mood to gulp something down that would be fun and non-trivial, while at the same time non dangerous and useful. None of what I had left truly fit that bill, but the team of six came closest, so one of their number would be what I would try. 

Then I learned why my original self had wanted them. 

My predecessor had run into the Greek while searching for these guys, one of the very few times he'd gone after an active person or set of people instead of old timers long retired. They'd been a team of curse-breakers originally, although working on Mayan tombs and temples instead of the other side of the pond where most of the rest of his targets had plied their trades. 

But that wasn't what was most interesting about them. They'd had a few magical builders among them, people whose specialty allowed them to build, but also to tear apart structures too difficult to enter normally, and from all they'd uncovered the team had discovered enough runes and relics they'd started to gain some slight degree of understanding of the lost Mayan magic. 

It was a 'Wow! If we study this for the next dozen years we might start to really get some use out of it' sort of discovery, not a 'Neat! Now we can do everything they once did, and do it this afternoon!' sort of thing. So it wasn't terribly useful in the short term, but Lockhart had wanted to claim credit for their discovery all the same. 

It would have made him even more famous, but at the end, as I'd said, he'd proved unable to adapt their work to where he could take sole credit, and he didn't dare share. Nor did he have the knowledge to do anything with their discovery himself, as it was all terribly thick and academic, far surpassing the reach of his uninspired scholastic abilities. I think a good part of why he proved unable to turn their story into a book praising himself was that he could not actually understand the breakthrough they'd made! 

Well, lucky me he'd at least preyed upon interesting people. 

From time to time wizards felt the need to get four of them together and create a place like Hogwarts, or toss a prison up in an afternoon, or one will want to run off on his own and create a place like the Chamber of Secrets. Or they'll get one to drill down in London proper to make a Ministry of Magic building below ground right under the muggle's noses without them noticing. 

In short, they had specialists among them who could do more building in a few wand flicks than an entire muggle construction crew could manage in months of hard, backbreaking labor with heavy machines in support! And what they built would often last thousands of years without serious flaw or complaint. 

It was not surprising that this skill was as rare as it was useful. However, it did exist and among the most well paid posts such a person might receive was to take a position with a team of curse breakers and use those skills in reverse, to tear apart ancient tombs for the money and ancient artifacts inside. Such teams also tended to work alone, independent of Gringotts so they didn't have to share out a major portion of the riches to the goblins. 

Well, I was fortunate (or perhaps not so lucky, as it was those teams that had builders who were most successful, and only the most accomplished drew the original Lockhart's interest in obtaining their memories) that the team he had Obliviated had two builders upon it, one to tag team the other for long projects, or who could work together to handle larger loads. 

So I eagerly poured one of those specialist's memories inside my head, happy to get the skills for throwing up a structure magically. 

For, if nothing else, this meant I could simply go wild with sets. 

And I did. 

We even sat down with some floorplans of the Enterprise I'd provided and built an entire Starship Enterprise, the working corridors of one anyway, in an unused gold mine I bought with my earnings from the first movie we'd done. There wasn't any super technology in it, but the doors worked, and more than that everything looked real. 

To my continual amusement, often the kids would say "You got this wrong" and point out some useful feature or other that, for practical purposes, really ought to have been included in the first place. Of course they wanted to turn the whole thing into a living environment instead of a film set. 

The way they wanted sick bay set up would have done proud as an actual hospital, with gadgets and devices galore and screens where Dr. McCoy could see readouts of patients' conditions or realtime displays of various parts, like skeleton, muscle tissue, nerves, circulatory system... anything, really. There was also a wealth of practical touches like you'd find people doing in the real world, like a few reclined transporter pads in the transporter room for bringing up bodies, living or dead; and high tech stretchers you could put down over those horizontal transporters so the body appeared right on the stretcher and could be easily carried away to Medical, where they could then be laid down directly on those med-beds and clicked into the frame so you didn't have to disturb the trauma patient at any point by transferring him from one bed to another. We even had a closet for storing those stretchers in the transporter room, so they were always ready to hand in emergencies. 

Stuff like that, things people would actually do if they had to live in this environment. 

And you know what? I was ok with that. It added depth and realism, and more than that, film sets only existed as they did because it made things easier on the camera crews and people who designed, put up and took down temporary sets they built on sound stages. 

But, well, the whole thing was already designed, my newest set of memories made building it all childishly easy, and we had no plans to take it down... um... ever? Besides, to cut down on the extraneous people angle of the whole thing we were talking about animating the cameras to do the work automatically, creeping around on animated tripods and such so we didn't have to allow for filming crews as much. 

I'd seen a movie once where'd they'd built an entire house on a two-story gimbal, allowing them to tilt, angle or shake the set as they desired. And you know what? That worked out well for us, so we built a starship bridge that way, separate from but identical to the one in the continuous and complete Enterprise. That way we could film the battle scenes and other 'shake up' sequences in one, while having 'continuous walk through' shots in the other. 

That way we didn't have to rely on our funky elevator to chop all those shots up. Also, we got a humongous, glare-free mirror to hang on the front of our bridge, enchanted to do the two-way thing with another large mirror that we could stick on whatever alien starship bridge we'd prepared for that episode. 

Also, it made acting a whole lot easier to see the person you were interacting with, rather than to emote at a blank wall special effects people would later add your conversation partner to. And we could hang a mirror at different angles to help flavor the transmissions of each major space faring race. 

Once we were done with all of these tweaks and adjustments, it was almost a real environment. Enough of the gadgets, like intercoms and lights, worked to make it a functional living space, even a comfortable one, and once our animated camera spiders got disillusionment charms put on them it was easy to ignore them scuttling about, trying to shoot things. 

Perhaps too easy, as reviewing the footage they'd taken in preparation of splicing together our pilot episode, I stuck in one reel and got treated to the image of Miranda in the act of taking her shower. 

One mad blush and a destroyed tape later, and it was time to instruct our little cameras on legs not to film certain things. 

Ever. 

But once we'd gotten the bugs out, and our sets as solid as they were, most filming was so easy as to be almost trivial. And there was enough worthless desert land about our abandoned mine that virtually any alien setting could be whipped up in an afternoon. We even had, on our property, a box canyon that had a small forest and lake for filming those kinds of scenes. 

In all, it made for a great period of stress relief, healing and bonding. 

OoOoO 

Unbeknownst to me, while we were all living at Godric's Hollow, meeting old friends of Harry's original family and having fun, healing emotional wounds from a number of sources (wounds that, while presently dealt with and doing well, were by no means completely healed), then again while we were filming a chunk of the first season of Star Trek, the original series, doing that week over again, Snape had called for a Slytherin reunion at Hogwarts. 

All of his cronies, old and new, had been there, and shortly after that meeting broke up small groups of his students had begun to run all over the globe fetching back potion ingredients or magical artifacts. 

Someone was planning something, but whether it was Snape, or one of his masters, or even one of his friends, I had no idea until much later. 

On one such mission, Draco, and his own cronies Crabbe and Goyle, had been sent in to the Forbidden Forest to fetch back something or other, and they had been consumed by hunger-mad acromantulas. 

No, I hadn't wiped out the colony there, just substantially reduced it. I'd been crazy at the time and my priorities had been to fill my collected bottles, not to wipe out the entire local supply of giant magical spiders. A bit messy, but what is one to expect from a lunatic? 

And, to all appearances, Snape had wanted some of what could be harvested from the acromantulas there, too. As those three were not the only team of Slytherins he sent in there. I didn't even think Draco and his friends had been after acromantula ingredients, as he'd set several post graduate students on that (since I had unknowingly deprived Snape of the ability to raid my stockpiles of those priceless bits by taking them with me - just before he'd wanted to raid them, too). 

No, piecing together all of the evidence we had available, Draco and his pair of dim, ugly friends had been in a formerly peaceful part of the forest hunting after unicorn hairs or werewolf droppings. It's just that the disturbed nest of spiders had been rather maddened by my attack and was ranging far wider than usual in their efforts to collect food and expand back up to their former numbers. The end result of which was a war between them and the centaurs (who were holding them off or avoiding them quite easily, using their superior speed and arrows), and that Draco was now dead as just one more incidental casualty, having been in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

Well, acromantulas make bad neighbors in any case. Nobody would have come to any harm if they'd just left the forest alone until the spiders settled back down again, but I hadn't known and they hadn't asked. 

However, with Draco dead that left his mother as the last remaining Malfoy, and soon after our little group arrived back in England on a trip for supplies I found myself approached at my penthouse by Narcissa, who pled with me to save Bellatrix, her last surviving relative. (Last one that she liked, anyway, there was also Andromeda and Tonks if you'd wanted to get technical, but their lives were not in any danger that anyone could tell. Nor was she close to them at present.) 

It turned out, as the one to arrest her, the fate of Bellatrix was going to be left in my hands by a court tied up between a ministry wanting to seem harsh to evildoers and those who wanted to let her off due to not being in her right mind at the time she'd committed those crimes, with the pureblood vote being too diminished recently to carry it in favor of one of their own. So it was up to me, and Narcissa had raced to be the first to make an appeal to me once that decision had been made, catching me just as I walked inside my door. 

With the former Grangers standing around, just as shocked as I was by all of this, I was faced with the proud and noble Pureblood Narcissa kneeling on my carpet offering me everything if I will but spare her beloved sister - the last person on this planet she had any affection towards. 

It was a rather pitiful sight and the first I'd heard of this tangled mess. "It rests entirely with you whether she is hanged or not," the beautiful woman blubbered into my vest as I picked her up off the carpet and guided her to a seat on my oft-abused couch, site of many emotional breakdowns lately, the rest of my family filtering in around me. 

Hanged? Ah! No dementors meant no kiss. 

I asked her about Draco, only to hear that he and his friends went off a week ago and got themselves killed by acromantulas in the Forbidden Forest. 

The first I'd heard of that, too. Several of the kids gasped in shock on hearing it. 

Pausing for a long moment of thought while the pureblood paragon blubbered in my arms pleading for mercy on behalf of her sister, I weighed my options and drew a deep breath. 

"Okay, Narcissa. You have a deal." I accepted so that I could get and destroy Riddle's diary. Wherever the Malfoys had hidden it, pretty much no longer mattered, as wherever it was, if they had access to it, now so did I. Although really, she needn't have bothered. I LIKED Bellatrix. Once the empath had that horrible reversal spell removed she'd turned into a remarkably nice person, and not one I was going to see executed if I could help it! 

Actually, I'd had a contingency plan bubbling away in the background to break her out again if that became necessary. But it wasn't, and that was a good thing. Best of all to have her crimes forgiven so she could go forth as a normal person instead of as a fugitive. 

And we were all too happy to welcome her back into the family fold. 

But, by doing things this way, I now had a decent amount of influence over her one sister who'd remained on the dark side of all of this, and hopefully now we could save Narcissa too. 

Moving us all over to the Malfoy estate, as by now my apartment was far too crowded to get our whole group together, I set everyone to getting things together while I popped over to the Ministry to recover Bellatrix. Narcissa and Miranda went with me. The first I'd thought came along to expedite the recovery, using her influence to cut through some red tape, but there was surprisingly little of that. 

No, what she was there doing was keeping up her side of the bargain, being prompt about registering with the official Ministry archives that all of the former Malfoy property now belonged to me. 

And yes, according to laws that I already knew, the only way she could do that was to arrange for all of that to be her dowry and officially register herself as my wife. 

There was nothing romantic in her doing this. It was merely the only means Narcissa had at her disposal to live up to her end of the promise. So it was strictly mechanical on her part, like signing over a car's pink slip. 

Truthfully, her last experience at marriage was so bad she didn't think it mattered much who held the other end of her leash, as she was effectively a caged animal either way. 

Boy was SHE wrong! 

I think my jaw fell off and rolled down the stairs when she met up with us as I was just escorting a newly acquitted Bellatrix out of her cell, a free woman for the first time in many years - and the first thing Bella did upon hearing the news was to shriek at the top of her lungs how unfair it all was - that she had married me first! 

Well, technically, I suppose... 

But there was nothing for it at that point but to agree that I HAD accepted her and ownership of the LeStrange estates through her, but before I could go on to explain WHY I'd done that... well, those eager toadies, flunkies and suck ups at the Ministry had done what good sycophants do and rushed ahead to 'Give me what I want', and there I was standing between two Black sisters, each of whom were now legally my wives! 

And yes, there was some actual interest in there of a romantic sort. It wasn't much, but we were already friends, something she'd never been with either of the LeStrange brothers. So there was some bubbling of potential affection there, not yet realized for all that it was eagerly sought after. 

Oh, and then MIRANDA, of all people, had to get involved! 

Once she'd learned that polygamy was not only legal (and I do recall saying there were very few laws among magical society concerning what was and was not appropriate mating habits), but TREASURED! Miranda proposed to me practically on the spot! 

Luckily I was able to put her off for a bit by declaiming that I would have to think it over, and that the wives I'd already gotten would both deserve their individual honeymoons first. 

I think if I'd set off an explosion right there in their offices it would have drawn less of a reaction from the Ministry. 

You see, by saying the magic word 'honeymoon' I'd admitted to actually having some degree of sexual interest in those women who'd just recently become my wives. 

And I'd already said how unusual that was among purebloods. 

The ever elegant and poised Narcissa, who'd never had a hair out of place that I could recall, let her jaw fall open upon hearing the news out of my mouth as I'd stumbled, trying to delay Miranda's proposal until I could properly think it over. Bellatrix skipped straight over that step and gave me her best impression of an Amazon Glomp, which, while not up to a Ranma fic's standards, still did quite well for our current circumstances! 

Blushing, something I'd thought she'd NEVER do, Narcissa stuttered in the background of this mighty hug (and stuttering was another thing on the 'there is no way she'd ever do this' list) about ordering a set of materials for the ritual to create an heir... 

... and some obscure corner of my logical processes decided that, since my higher functions were offline that moment, it could take over, and retrieved from data storage a truthful answer, then delivered it. 

"Don't bother." I heard my own lips say before I could stop them. "I'd really prefer to sire all of my kids the natural way." 

You'd think I'd set the Ministry building on fire from the reaction THAT got! 

In a perfectly rational environment, I'd consider it one of the standard duties of a husband to... (blushes), well, you know. Marrying perfect strangers was not a new thing in this world either, and whether you got into that situation out of arranged marriages or otherwise, well, if the two people involved were both good at heart it could and eventually would work out to where they each learned to love the other and be happy. And everyone had a right to expect children to result from that couple. 

It's just something I never personally expected to be involved in, mind you. 

Meanwhile, you'd think I'd kicked an ant's nest among the Ministry workers. 

There were not quite laws, but customs firmly controlling how many women a man could marry, but those only applied if he was just after their property. 

One of the big limiters was one insisting that each wife be permitted opportunities to produce a child until she did so (something that most pureblooded males found as disgusting as I did THEIR habits), and there was a law on the books that the original estate or dowry of each girl in a harem be restricted so it was only inheritable by her offspring or nobody, so for combining estates into huge, hereditary fortunes, polygamy was next to useless, no better than monogamy. 

So, of course, most purebloods didn't bother with it. 

It was fine, I understood that, even agreed with the principle. It was a waste of precious resources to let one guy marry multiple women if he was going to be a total stranger to them, lock them up in a tower, and otherwise utterly waste the potential for a relationship with them, just after their money. 

On the other hand, the magical world (especially the pureblood side of it) was starved for children. The artificial insemination ritual worked, at best, only a handful of times per woman, and couldn't be performed too often in any case so it was in no way going to do more than replace the parents under ordinary circumstances, not accounting for all of the casualties caused by those wars they'd had! 

So they knew they were shrinking. Knew, and felt helpless to do anything about it. They'd felt locked into that course by their habits. 

Magical purebloods so often had no interest in their wives that once a man was found who was actually interested in women, well, sure they'd consider him a deviant, but they just kind of fell out of their chairs trying to help that guy be fruitful and productive. 

It was the only way their own children would eventually have someone to marry. 

The original Lockhart was a halfblood, but due to all of the awards, accolades and honors I'd been accumulating lately I'd effectively become an honorary pureblood. Nobody asked about Merlin's ancestry, he was Merlin! And now I was just touching the fringes of being a modern equivalent, in their eyes. So I was, by default, considered an acceptable match for pureblooded women. 

Fame! Ah, what a fickle friend, one moment your best ally, the next your worst enemy! 

Well, I'd had a brother raise pedigreed cats, and what you do when you've got a male with a strong reputation is make sure he produces lots of children. It was more than a little sick and twisted, but pureblood society was reacting much that same way towards me! 

I'd gotten another two proposals before I'd left the building, and doubtless there were more to follow! 

Egads! How was I going to get out of this mess?!! 

I didn't know, but later that day, after a special edition of the Daily Prophet came out declaring the news that I was some sort of sicko bastard that actually found females of my own species attractive, Minerva McGonagall dropped by the Ministry to confess that she belonged to me and registered her own claim as my property, a magically binding agreement, as I recall, that they were able to test and confirm. The original deal made by her parents was still on record at the Ministry. As she had the cane, a simple testimony under Veritaserum that I'd given it to her, and they had that nailed down from another angle still, so went ahead and registered that regal lady as a third wife, yet first in order of acquisition. 

Minnie then dropped by to tell me the joyful news, sending my hair flaring out at all angles and eyes bulging in surprise. 

That was the moment, of course, for the Addams family to get involved. 

With both the series and the movies in agreement, I understood the Addams tended to actually love their wives. The line, "I would die for her, I would kill for her. Either way, what bliss!" was a little telling in that department, and which, quite frankly, was yet another thing that made them creepy to the rest of the ancient magical families. 

Okay, it was a little scary when THEY found reasons to relate to you. But it got multiplied by, like, tenfold when I was the one seeing things in common betwixt us! 

Still, I highly doubted that any Addams had been at the crashed party. 

Back to the subject at hand, Morticia decided to get involved, and sent out formal proposals, written on tasteful if macabre stationary and fringed with black lace, to Each. And. Every. Girl. On. That. List! 

I'd begun thinking this was a good time to practice hiding under a rock, but Nicholas Flamel decided that was as good an opportunity as any (and better than most) to show up at our little family get together at the Malfoy house (where I was in chains to prevent me from taking a nice vacation to the dark side of the moon - without leaving a forwarding address) revealing that he and his wife had perfected a youth serum based on the ideas I'd given them. 

The former dark lord and his wife then administered enough to render the whole lot of us adults: myself, Miranda, Bellatrix, and Minerva, to our 'just come into adulthood' age of our early twenties. 

Then secretly, the Flamels delivered on their promise to me, presenting me with the Philosopher's Stone they'd promised me earlier. I was a little aggrieved that not even this could buy me out of trouble anymore. But also they showed that they'd been using that youth serum themselves, hidden under polyjuice for this visit, and were now quite young and ready to go start new lives for themselves. 

I envied them, but once they'd refused to smuggle me out to go with them, I wished them luck and took note of how to contact them for my training. 

As if that weren't enough, Bellatrix, in a search for how to offer restitution to her victims, cornered the Flamels before they could depart, approached them on my behalf, as my wife, asking for them to go apply their new youth serum to the torture victims who'd lost so much of their lives to lying insensate at St. Mungo's. 

She made a successful plea. 

The former Gargamel made a stop by St. Mungo's, picked up copies of their records as to who had been in their long term care ward, and for how long, then he sought those people out, administering just enough elixir to make up for the time they'd lost out of their lives. 

For the adults this was a big thing, as folk like the Longbottoms got restored to childbearing age, so Neville would have a number of siblings in the coming years. Also, it served as a potent psychological boost that got many on their feet once again, in spite of other losses. 

But the real kicker was what he did for the children who'd been tortured. We got a couple thousand extra Hogwarts students, swelling the enrollment to many times what it had been any time in the past four hundred years, as kids who were in the midst of their schooling got restored to their pre-torture ages to pick up from where they'd left off, and younger ones Nicholas reset to eleven, or in other words starting school age. 

That girl, who'd been the first person I'd used those experimental spells to emulate muggle limb reconstruction techniques on. She'd been in her mid twenties at the time, but had been in the hospital's care ward for twenty years. She'd been seven at the time of her being tortured to insanity. Now she was eleven, able to start her education and build toward having a life and jubilant over not having missed out on her opportunity for education. 

The halls of Hogwarts would be filled for the first time in many generations. 

And the hope that came from this was palpable. 

During the midst of this, I was able to make a suggestion that did not involve sneaking me out at the bottom of some bag, and both Sirius and Remus, both victims of torture in a way, also got their bio-clocks set back by the decade or so they'd lost. 

Twenty one for each of them, just like me and my... wives, I suppose you'd call them, although how Miranda got that officially registered was... 

Oh, of course, she'd got an invite to marry me mailed fresh from Morticia's pen. And of COURSE she'd accepted it! 

This seemed like as good an opportunity as any to grumble about how unfair it all was. Okay! So I hadn't had the brain power to protest when Morticia had adopted me as an Addams! How was I to know that made Gomez my official Clan Head, able to decide marriages for me? 

Well, the alternative to their adopting me was death, so I suppose in the end it wasn't all that bad a price to pay, but still! 

Getting introduced to Wednesday and Pugsley as "Uncle Gilderoy" was enough of a shock all on it's own, thank you very much! I didn't need, on top of that, for the creepiest family in the universe to be arranging marriages for me! 

For one thing, the more disturbing something was, the better they liked it. So they felt nothing, NOTHING AT ALL against proposing to eleven and twelve year olds on my behalf! 

NOT EVEN WHEN I WAS ALREADY ENGAGED TO THEIR MOTHER!! 

Ah, those sedatives were nice. 

I watched, smiling quite peacefully as Miranda took away both her daughters' official offers of proposal to marry me, written in Morticia's clean hand, sure that some shred of sanity must remain in her somewhere, so she'd at least take care of that one. 

Once Luna received hers, however, she offered to come over to our house and be tied up next to me, for company. 

Then the Flamels 'died', to escape the magical world's notice, leaving me behind to take credit for the production of a magical eye-curing potion they'd developed on my request. 

Among the first persons to take it were myself and Harry. It gave perfect eyesight at a swig, and absolutely perfect eyesight was rare, so I didn't want to miss out on a chance to do away with my own imperfections. And perfect eyesight was a positive necessity for anyone living on his own in the Alaskan wilds trying to avoid unwanted wedding engagements. 

However, on that matter, as my self appointed guardians, Miranda and her daughters shared some around between them before making it available in general to the magical world, negating that advantage and complicating my escape plans. 

Then, seeing as how I was absolutely filthy rich through my various marriages and publishing ventures, and wanting to appear sane so they didn't drug me up to my gills so could no longer plot my escape, I started a fund to provide some to all who stood in need (including Bathilda Bagshot). 

The already tremendous psychological benefit the magical world had gotten by the instant and near miraculous recovery of all of those former torture patients now got a second and third, totally unexpected but similar in scope boost as those who'd lost much of their lives found them restored again. It was enough to change one's totally outlook on life, at least for some time. 

One could scarcely find an end to the rejoicing and celebrations. 

Unless you looked in my room, where I'd just gotten a positive reply from Pansy Parkinson regarding the marriage proposal Morticia had sent her on my behalf. 

Then, of course, there was the note from Morticia herself regarding how excited she was to be planning all of those big, stately weddings for me. 

OoOoO   
Author's Notes: 

Ah, nothing like a little insanity and marriage mayhem to spice up an old story! 

Okay, show of hands. Who imagines they know what sort of weddings Moritica Addams would plan? 


	14. Chapter 14

My Gilded Life  
Chapter Fourteen

by Skysaber  
based on a challenge forwarded by Lionheart

OoOoO

Boots in hand as I tiptoed out of the mansion, I considered my situation, and reluctantly had to conclude that being about to be married to a few dozen witches was not the worst of my problems.

My biography of Voldemort was supposed to hit the bookstore shelves in magical Britain about the same time as the expose Harry and I had worked on together regarding his early life, and the horrors he suffered, mostly due to Dumbledore. And that was due to happen very soon now. So my little vacation of not having to worry about the manipulative old bastard coming after me directly was rapidly coming to a close.

Since Dumbledore's reputation was his strongest and most subtle weapon, I had already decided, from the moment I set out on this course, to destroy as much of that as possible before he could turn around and wield it against me. So, to that end, I plotted a second punch.

When your enemy is down is the easiest time to kick him. Not something you want to do in a friendly fight, or against honorable opponents, but since this guy was scarcely better than a dark lord, from all that had been revealed about him, well... he was just too powerful and too ruthless to fight on nice terms. I wasn't even sure that, having personally arranged the child abuse and murder of Harry Potter, he was even deserving of it.

Dumbledore was living proof of the adage, "A man can smile and smile and be a villain." The guy loved power more than he loved people, and that was pretty much all there was to it.

Frankly, I was terrified of him.

I had never really set out to be an enemy of the Headmaster. However, I HAD more or less dedicated myself to the support and training of Harry, as vital to the safety and future of this world I was now in, and that more or less came with the requirement of opposing certain things initiated as schemes by Albus Dumbledore.

I had chosen people. But, doing that required I oppose Dumbledore's power, as he was out to sacrifice those very people I'd chosen to protect.

The moment he'd uncovered those acts of opposition he would act in turn to neutralize them, and, I felt certain, neutralize me with them. I hadn't forgotten how he'd sent Sirius to Azkaban for being inconvenient to his own plans. The guy was a master of subtle legilimency who routinely scanned all those who came in contact with him. You couldn't tell ME that Albus hadn't known that Peter was the real traitor!

They'd all rubbed shoulders in those Order meetings often enough.

I had Peter's memories in a bottle back in my room. I KNEW the rat had never studied occlumency! He'd never known the art existed! I'd been able to go over the relevant period in my pensieve a few times, and seen knowing grins and glances as Albus met his eyes during meetings across that whole year of Peter's treason. So I KNEW that Albus had uncovered it!

And as the head of the magical court system, it took AT LEAST his passive acceptance for the then-Minister to get away with sending Sirius anywhere without a trial.

But, no, Albus couldn't have custody of Harry with Sirius still around. So the old man had arranged for one of his own Order members to get locked up and fed on by dementors for the crime of having been inconvenient to the plans of Albus Dumbledore.

That was extremely evil, not just a little but a LOT!

From his perspective I was guilty of that same crime as Sirius was, but far worse as I'd actually intended to be in the way of Dumbledore's plans. That meant that despite never having wanted to be the Headmaster's enemy, I was. And, seeing as how I was his enemy anyway, I might as well strike just as hard and as deeply as I could, on the vague chance I might win this thing.

Not that I really expected I would. In fact, half my plans regrettably had to account for Azkaban as an almost certain fixture in my future (which was an excellent reason for having gotten rid of the dementors beforehand). In most of the rest I was dead.

Still, I could either accept defeat, and make it certain, or fight against it and by doing so open up paths where I might get outrageously lucky. You never knew, it might happen.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Hope dwells eternal in the human breast, and all of that. The only thing truly certain was I'd fail if I didn't try. After all, look at Tom Riddle's original situation - he'd won that war, then during a routine triple murder he'd accidentally shot himself in the face. His followers had panicked, and that was the end of everything for him.

You couldn't say odd happenstance didn't affect things, because they did.

I was able, as a bookwriter, to walk in to Nuremburg prison where they kept Grindelwald and interview him during regular visiting hours from outside the bars to his cell. There, in exchange for some decent food of a muggle sort, he spilled his guts about anything and everything I asked questions about.

Under Veritaserum, no less. Administered by a helpful guard certified to do such things on request, and willing to testify to such in my upcoming book.

So, in return for a basket of fruit, a few hamburgers, a pitcher of milk, some bread and a blanket, I received a signed contract stating that I had exclusive rights to write and publish Lord Grindelwald's biography, and hours and hours of interviews about the subject matter including, most especially, his early friendship and partnership with Dumbledore, from whom he'd acquired most of his ideals. The guard sickened and my dictation pens scratched as Gellert, under truth serum, told of how Albus had drawn the young Gellert into Albus Dumbledore's own plans for world domination; how together they'd theorized about Wizard supremacy "For the Greater Good" of the world, and that it was only the intercession of Aberforth Dumbledore sparking a duel resulting in the accidental death of his sister that kept Albus and Gellert from setting off together on paths Lord Grindelwald had later trod separately.

It took a feverish afternoon of work, but one rush order to the printer later and now the book based on that material one was due to come out in stores soon, as well. I could hold off on the four volume set of the complete version of Gellert's history later, as it would take time and research to do it justice. Heck, with maps and outsider accounts and things it might be larger yet. That would be the best way to do it, creating a resource of the age.

But right now I wanted to stick another fork in Dumbledore's eye.

Hopefully my fame would shield me somewhat from Dumbledore's wrath, but I didn't count on it. It was like asking a bit of tissue paper to protect you from rain. It might do a very tiny, teeny bit, but you'd best get the problem solved by other means first. By taking up residence in the USA, however, I WAS able to dodge the bulk of his legal authority and force him into illegal methods that could at least blot his reputation and provide more material to hurt him with...

... in the bizarrely unlikely eventuality that I should survive to write about it. But one had to have hope, after all. Superior forces had lost in the past, and would again. You never knew what could happen if you kept trying.

An old image came to mind, a hand-drawn picture of a frog being held in a pelican's beak, reaching both arms out of its mouth to strangle the bird so it couldn't swallow the frog who was strangling it.

Ok, you may go down, but don't go down easy! It's when things look blackest that you mustn't quit. The enemy's strength had limits, too, and those may be tighter than you know. There was also some small hope this little dodge might also aid me in escaping those engagements Morticia had set up for me.

There was actually a decent probability I was safe there, seeing as how the United States were a young country and didn't have those ancient, pureblood laws grandfathered in like junk accumulated in the back of a closet. So it was doubtful they had anything like the same marriage laws, as the old corruption simply didn't exist to the same extent there.

Actually, the Colonies had always been the dumping place for castoffs, spare sons and criminals in the old days. No self respecting pureblood witch or wizard would even visit the place for the longest time. So no, from what I understood, the magical laws they had there were sane and rational for the most part, without the corruption that had set in on the muggle side as yet.

One thing I knew was I couldn't be married to anyone less than sixteen in the USA. So, score! I planned on taking up permanent residence, ready to let most of my unwanted marriage prospects wilt on the vine while waiting for me to show my nose elsewhere.

Unfortunately, I couldn't settle down to retirement just yet, as Harry was not yet out of the woods as far as Dumbledore's manipulations went. So I had to put off going into hiding until a few more of those issues got resolved.

And I wasn't entirely safe to hide there myself, yet. The United States WERE Britain's closest ally, so I didn't exactly feel sheltered from Albus there. He was bound to have abundant contacts with resources there who could and would come looking for me on his behalf. And I still hadn't solved the problem of how I was going to teach at Hogwarts while not leaving America, but I still had a month or so to address that one, while I had no such luxury in dealing with the most powerful wizard of our age.

Feeling a terrible rush to get ready for this confrontation, and fearing that things were about to come to a head soon, I hurried back to the manor and absorbed the most dangerous of all of the memories remaining in my collection, after stripping out the dark bits through a unicorn and kneazle monitored filtering process and praying REALLY hard for protection during it!

Through Narcissa (one of the many Nicholas has also restored youth to), I'd gotten ahold of Riddle's Diary, then Obliviated it so I could steal his memories from a time when he was at his least evil before AKing the thing. I used those to copy some of his powers, ESPECIALLY wandless magic! But also everything else, as "he was one of the most brilliant students Hogwarts has ever seen."

As a result, I got access to Tom Riddle's wandless skills, something I made sure to share out among my close group, as I was sure we'd need it; A great prison break tool, if nothing else, as it was difficult to incarcerate a man who could cast spells without a wand, and even in the remote chance we didn't need it for that or other survival reasons, it was still nice and useful to have.

On getting his invitation to Hogwarts, Riddle had boasted, "I can make things move without touching them. I can make animals do what I want them to do, without training them. I can make bad things happen to people who annoy me. I can make them hurt if I want to." All of those were incredibly useful skills, and that was before any formal training.

That diary also included six full years of Tom Riddle's formal training, as well as all of the independent study and research he'd performed over that time. It came as a vital second perspective, something we could contrast to those same periods of education covered from the Marauder's perspective, and the gaps of one often got filled by the other, or highlighted failings in both. From that basis, our little family could obtain more full mastery of the Hogwarts material than any other student in centuries, given a little time to do so.

Time I feared we may not have.

Of course, Hogwarts was still only Hogwarts. Even granted full mastery of all of their official material, as well as a few sidelines, that school covered only the basic essential grasp of magic. There was only so much you could teach flocks of uncaring students over a space of seven years, and it had to lay a foundation for those students to build on across a lifetime, so they couldn't get into any of the weird, specialty, or fringe stuff - stuff that made all of the difference between a well educated amateur or an expert in their field.

Fortunately for us, Tom Riddle had done more independent study and extra work than had been covered in the entire official course load. And I could view through Pettigrew's memories the sort of outside interests and study on topics not covered that the Marauders had done. It wasn't the same as learning it directly, but did point our family in the right directions.

And we had Sirius and Remus here to provide memories of those independent study sessions and other learning events, so I could get soon hope to get that information directly and become one additional expert helping out in those fields.

Still, of it all, I was most grateful for Riddle's wandless skills. They weren't much by the time he'd reached sixteen, as he'd let those ability atrophy, diminishing his focus on wandless skills in favor of the easy power available by using a wand for all of his spells.

Tom Riddle was big on easy power.

But, these being memories, I could use that trick I'd done before when I'd first arrived in this world and had been trying desperately to reassemble something approaching a magical education. The original Gilderoy Lockhart had been incredibly gifted with memory charms, and I could use those to reinforce the memories of Tom Riddle gaining those wandless magic skills just as I had done to catch up on classes Gilderoy had lazed through. So I went ahead and did so, as I feared I'd greatly need them.

For myself, power was not so much a goal as a means to an end, and the end I was seeking at the moment was merely escape and survival. But to do that, I had to escape what were the most powerful people in the magical world, and that required some power on my own part to do properly.

Not about to consider what I had adequate, we moved on.

Various fanfics had described in detail wonderfully insightful methods for learning wordless or wandless magic, occlumency or animagi transformations and raising your magical potential.

All of those, we put to use now.

Some worked, while some didn't. But the ones that worked were amazingly successful, light years ahead of anything the magical public had available.

I really should NOT have been surprised by that! Most of her fans who wrote were better at the whole figuring out magic stuff than Rowling was. She'd claimed that witches and wizards couldn't think things through very well only to cover her own failings in that department. But maybe that was what put her in tune to witness this place to begin with, because while standing here I could see that it was true, magical folk in general didn't have a lick of common sense. All of those clear-thinking fans who'd done work on figuring this magic system out were leagues ahead of the local witches and wizards.

Hey! Many of them had worked out that that Patroni could be used to carry messages long before Rowling had ever 'revealed' that to be the case. And, if you wanted to listen to some cynics, she might even have picked up the idea from them.

They certainly wrote better than she did, even if they did have to 'follow her tap' as it were, allowing her to make initial contact with this world.

However, we feverishly made use of everything we had.

Bellatrix was the one who taught Draco Occlumency, and did so to such a degree that Snape, who'd been illegally practicing Legilimency for years on unsuspecting students, was unable to casually penetrate his mind. What was interesting to note was that it was in sixth year that defense was tested, and she'd only been broken out of Azkaban during Harry's fifth year, by the timeline in the books. That meant she'd had at most a year to tutor him, and in practical terminology probably only a few months grabbed during summer and holidays for her to instruct Draco to that level.

Thus, it was possible, if you had a decent instructor (something Snape was most definitely NOT) to pick up a respectable proficiency of Occlumency in just a few months of tutoring. Draco's skill level from that was actually impressive, as he'd blocked the scans of a man who'd been practicing the art in secret every day for longer than the boy had been alive.

And we just happened to have the tutor who'd given him that impressive skill on our side at the moment. So that became our plan. We could only hope we had the few months it would take to accomplish it.

But quick, that evening before we did anything to alter Harry's mind, we all skipped off to Russia, where practically nothing magical was illegal, as their last recognized Ministry of Magic failed when the Czars got overthrown, and the Communist replacement had been a crude, badly put together ideological hackjob made up of nearly untrained communist wizards who made the incompetent English ones look like Merlin by comparison.

And that Communist Ministry had made too many attempts to overthrow their neighbors to be trusted, so it did not share any resources with, and was not part of any international community and shared very few of their laws - something that, combined with their own isolationism and inability to properly infiltrate foreign magical societies (who rightly feared their spies, and further takeover attempts), had served to cut them off from outside sources, which in turn kept Russian wizards more or less ignorant of what everyone else considered to be common magic.

Kind-hearted outsiders ignorant of their ruthlessness had taught them spells a time or two, but those examples always turned out so badly for everyone that spigot had dried up quickly.

I mean, when you teach someone a simple Cutting Curse and they use it on Lenin's orders to slaughter a couple million of their own people, plus a few foreigners, you get kind of leery about showing them anything else. And when you teach them a simple healing charm, and they immediately turn around to use it, almost exclusively, to prolong the suffering of victims of their rather brutal interrogations, you stop wanting to show them anything.

And Russian wizards had been so consistently hostile to the rest of the world that none of them could leave Russian soil without triggering the many wards set around their country by hostile neighbors, wards the Russians were too incompetent to detect or take down, and that would result in their deaths if crossed. So they didn't mingle to get spell knowledge. They couldn't even get out over the polar cap, as that had been tried a few times.

So use of the Unforgivables was practically MANDATORY for Russian Ministry employees, who learned those first and used practically nothing else. They were all accounted agents of the KGB and dealt with as part of that arm of the Soviet government - an arm that was still taking its own sweet time falling, as right now it was still very much in force.

Anyway, arriving in Russia, I gave our newly expanded group (now including Minnie, as well as Bella and Cissy) the basic run down of the Unforgivables just as the false Moody had done, and, with a Russian license to practice them in my pocket, very carefully cast the Imperious Curse on Harry.

I may have gasped in heartfelt relief when he failed to obey my instructions and threw the curse off moments later.

That was my intent.

Now I knew ahead of time that Harry was the only person named among the students who was able to throw that off, actually the only person of any age it was specifically mentioned could do so. And we'd needed him to. He may have been the only one, but we knew he COULD!

That was good enough. Where there was one, there could be several by the methods I had already made use of to practice other things.

I got his memory of that event then fed it into every person present, one by one, not even disguising what I was doing this time, even explaining how one could gain skills by absorbing memories directly, and confessing that this was the method I'd used to gain all of my power, finally giving each one a minor Obliviate to erase that tiny event and keep my secret.

However, in this case I attached a rider to my memory charm, in that if anything should happen to me, if I should die or disappear or be permanently incapacitated, my spell would remove itself and they would recall this event.

Now if I should be destroyed, these people would have the tools they'd need to continue on to fight in my absence.

Harry's future should be at least remotely secure.

Yes, it was manipulative of me, but the point where Dumbledore and I differed was that he had stopped caring about what happened to the people involved in his schemes, or the costs they paid on his behalf, while I was doing this so I could give them the same level of powers I had in case they needed them.

They would, after all, be able to find my trunk of saved memories, copies made of all of the experiences I'd absorbed, and from them they could gain everything that I had now.

That ought to throw a wrench in the Headmaster's plans.

Dumbledore had never arranged for anyone to ever match his power, under any circumstance whatsoever. Nor was I motivated by some nebulous 'Greater Good'. I was acting in the best interests of those precious to me, as best I knew how, using the materials and abilities I had available to me.

And full disclosure was coming. It just wasn't going to be right then.

Thankfully, when we picked up on the Imperious resistance practice from that point, everyone fortified by Harry's memory of overcoming it was able, with some difficulty more or less, to learn how to throw it off themselves.

That gave us a priceless extra measure of security.

Then, when Bella (with her own license to practice them on Russian soil) used the Imperious on me, also having been fortified by Harry's memory, I... well, I was halfway through a striptease before I threw it off, but throw it off I DID!

After that we did a bit of practice until any one of us could throw off such a curse in seconds, if not sooner. Harry could overcome the strongest such spell as soon as it was placed on him, and Bellatrix was an expert in their use!

So we had no worry about him; and the others among us, while not at his level, were adequate. We could throw off any such spell, just not as quickly.

Thus defended to a point where one of three Unforgivables was now next to useless against us, we retired to safer countries to begin to implement the rest of our regime of exotic training, including mastering Occlumency and using fan-suggested methods for building up a resistance to the Crucio, most notably including using tickling charms to train our minds in recognizing and overcoming phantom signals coming in to the brain. Of course, in terms of force, a Crucio was a firehose compared to the squirtgun of a tickling charm, but it was a good way to start, and not our only method, a recitation of which would be needlessly boring.

For a backup until such time as we had our Crucio resistance training up and functioning at a usable level, I overlaid a delayed spell on each of us. That freaky pain/pleasure reversal spell used by the LeStranges, set to activate only when we were under a Crucio.

Okay, the curse would still incapacitate you, but it was slightly less likely to drive you permanently insane in the aftermath, and would serve until we had a better form of resistance to the Pain Curse.

That left us with two of the three Unforgivables at least partially protected from. And, from what Rowling said, especially when Riddle was gloating over getting his new body (that it shared the remnants of Lily's blood protection over Harry) there was every possibility that Harry's resistance to the Killing Curse was a blood gift, and therefore something I might well have gotten a copy of when I unintentionally copied his other gifts.

Logically, it should have copied along with the rest. Naturally, this wasn't something I was eager to test. But the possibility was there all the same. A hope of last resort, that if every other defense had failed, that one MIGHT come forward and save the day.

And if I could somehow share that out it could potentially give each and every one of us some protection against the last of those three dreadful curses, a last line of defense for if all else had fallen.

I'd still far rather charm statues, stones and furniture into jumping into the way of a killing curse as far more reliable, even if this did work, as I knew well enough to know there was so much that I didn't know to stay cautious. What if Harry's resistance only applied to curses cast by Moldyshorts himself?

Things like that made me want to stay cautious in any event, as I could very much see a resistance that applied only to the first person who tried to use one on you, for example.

Not worth your life to find out the exact parameters.

It was Moria who came up with our solution, in a way. We blood typed Bella to see who could share her gift of Empathy, and the littlest girl in our company asked the innocent question of "Why can't you change blood type when you change faces?"

Out of the mouths of babes come the most startling ideas sometimes.

I tried it, and it turned out you CAN!

Shifting back to my own form, pre-Lockhart days, and I tested out as a solid O negative, just like I'd always done before arriving here.

Well, that made things simple. As Lockhart, the AB positive, I could receive from all of the common blood types. And as Jared, the pre-HP verse author, I could give blood to anyone.

Soon our entire company were empaths, metamorphs and parselmouths; any other gift we had, we shared in common among us all (even if we didn't know we had them).

Then at sunset I made sure to do a quick trip to visit Trelawney. The old bat may have been a fraud who had useless skills, but even Dumbledore admitted that she had the BLOODLINE of a true seer! And we did see her use that gift from time to time. For all of being erratic, uncontrolled and infrequent, she did make the occasional correct pronouncement.

The more active seers you had on your side, the more likely one of them was to give out some actual useful information. So I had dinner with my fellow teacher in her tower and surreptitiously took a blood sample.

Unfortunately her great-great-grandmother, the very gifted, very famous Cassandra Trelawney wasn't still around to copy from. But better a slight gift than no gift at all.

The next morning it was time to visit Luna Lovegood and see about acquiring Mage Sight, the ability to see magic and interpret auras, something that had once been described as "seeing in color when everyone else saw only in black and white."

The less said about that trip the better. It was odd even by my standards.

By now I was dashing about, trying to get all of the abilities I could lay hold of, for fear of a looming confrontation with Dumbledore. Nicholas Flamel and his wife Perenelle had both hidden out as hunters of the elusive demiguise at one point during their long as colorful pasts. So they'd had the training to see the invisible and between them had no trouble helping me overcome my difficulties in getting my own skills in that area sorted out right, to where I could both control and rely on it.

Of course, this did nothing to divert us from our many projects on the side.

As part of long-term plans that had to be fit in amongst all these hurried preparations, I started our group on the study of martial arts, getting them to where they could hopefully, eventually become physically fit and ready for anything. Because they'd need that when the time came.

As another a core element to one of my long-term contingency plans, I also introduced them to D&D and strategy games to start to develop that part of their minds, along with the problem solving aspects of those games.

The mind can truly be the most potent weapon anyone could have. But it has to be developed to do you any good.

Around this time we began making our rounds of public appearances, shoring up our image. No one really wanted to, but quieted when I said, "Remember that hungry lion, Fame, Harry? Now is the time to tame it."

Besides, if it all came down to a popularity contest, I didn't want to grant Albus too easy a victory. And, knowing Dumbledore, the way he preferred to dispose of his enemies was to use the government to destroy them for him, like he'd done with Sirius, and like he'd failed to do with Voldemort.

So, at some point it was almost guaranteed that one or more of those of us who opposed the Supreme Mugwump on the issue of Harry's treatment was going to end up in Azkaban. Probably sooner rather than later.

That made animagus transformations a top priority.

We already had most of the skills and training required to do that, plus an expert of our own in the form of Minnie to help us in overcoming obstacles in the last few steps, and an advisor in the form of Sirius himself.

What we really had to do now was choose what shapes to aim for. You had to have some kind of connection to your proposed shape, and the stronger the better. This was the stage most aspirants failed at, in selecting an animal form that you had a clear, perceivable connection to, rather than choosing a beast you merely liked or felt fond of. Thinking a shape was cool didn't help you to turn into one. You had to have some sort of connection.

It didn't need to be a literal connection. Figurative ones were almost stronger so long as they were evident to those around you. Minerva had been quite catty in her youth, and so that's where she got the form from. Dragon lady might be more appropriate for her now, although she was loosening up a bit.

Even being engaged to her, and her youth being restored, I would forswear any potential comments about her being a fine pussy.

Tom Riddle was a snake. Pettigrew, obviously, had been a rat, both figurative and literal. Sirius had been named for the dog star, and was as loyal as a hound. James had been something of a stag, while Rita Skeeter had always been bugging people even before she became a reporter or animagus, while Albus was a barmy old goat (he rarely used his animagus form).

So the trick was to pick an affinity and go with it, building on that connection until you had a solid basis for making that transformation.

Harry's was the most important to us.

He loved flying, so a bird form gave an excellent foundation. And, given the series as it was originally written, he'd also managed to raise himself from the dead. It might have been a cliche for him, but that wasn't going to stop us as it only got that way by being so tremendously useful, even logical.

Actually, being cliche just reflected the fact that the child had an enormous perceptible connection to the proposed form.

Having survived the killing curse twice, loving flying and helping others, and being a Gryffindor (the house of Fire to go by Rowling's intentions) Harry pretty much had to become a pheonix. Once this got explained to the others, they all agreed, so we aimed him toward becoming one (and having the group agree on this perception strengthened it, and helped him in no small way to reach that goal as his alternate form).

For myself, I became a lion. Hermione became an otter, and her mother a seal. Moria became a flying squirrel, and Bellatrix a fox, while Narcissa joined us as a parrot. Dora, predictably, got stuck as a chameleon animagus.

They all had their reasons. Don't ask me all of them, as some of them were embarrassing. For my sake, they'd insisted I try lion as it came closest to reflecting what they saw in me, and not the least of the factors shaping the proposed selection was my having a pride of females forming around me.

But I was also, in their eyes at any rate, commanding and authoritative (don't ask me how they got this perception, as I don't know), powerful (this one at least I knew how they'd formed THAT misconception) but also graceful in a very fundamental way. This last I could explain, having always been dexterous and that only having been added upon by all those memories of martial arts practice as well as dance, proper comportment, and so on.

I was also commonly believed to be a true Gryffindor, because of the bravery people assumed I had because of all of my reported exploits. But bravery and the House of the Lion connection more or less got me cornered (in spite of my expectations the original Gilderoy had actually been a Gryffindor, but he'd never been a very good one - too much like Ron, actually).

That being their perception of me, and most if not all of the magical world seeing me in a very similar light, I got pretty much locked into that form. It might have been more useful to be something more discrete, but discretion was not what they had a clear perception of me for. I was charm and grace and power, to their minds, and that spelled lion, so that was my connection.

If I HAD to be a great cat, I personally preferred tigers. But I didn't get to make that selection and got to have a go at being a lion despite it.

Narcissa, who'd spent most of her life repeating what lines others had told her about pureblood superiority and so on, almost became a mockingbird, and would have if I hadn't pointed out her beauty and that factor caused her to switch her aims over to another famous mimic that just happened to have gorgeous plumage. So she became a beautiful macaw, largest and most famous of the parrot family. Something oddly suitable on all counts.

She would have been a monkey but for the fact that she took herself so seriously, and monkeys just were plain undignified. Although I made a note to suggest that form to the Weasley Twins at some future point.

Trust Hermione, that muggleborn witch who was comfortable in both worlds, to become an animal at home both on land and in water. The playful aspect of otters surprised me a bit, though, as she'd hid it well in the novels. She'd first raised the question of becoming an owl, for their supposed wisdom, until I pointed out that she hated to fly, so a bird form was out of the question for her. But she loved swimming as much or more as she detested flying so that made for a clear bond.

Miranda was mostly the same as her oldest daughter, caught straddling two very different worlds. Although, like a seal, she'd favored one environment over the other. And that elegant lady confessed to always having loved the ocean. It wasn't the strongest of connections, but enough of one.

Moria fit in a similar form, only choosing two different environments to be at home in, and trading in a certain amount of playfulness for a touch of nutty. Plus, unlike her sister, she absolutely adored swings and flying.

Bellatrix, being both lovely and deadly, clever and cruel, made a perfect fox. While Dora, having been showing off her Metamorph powers so long, had a strong public perception as one who changed (especially her hair color), and the only good match for her with that kind of connection was the famous animal who changed colors. So she got to be a lizard with a funky skin.

Not what she would have picked for herself, but them's the breaks. You took what form you could get, or didn't become an animagus. And she nearly gave up the quest, and would not have continued on but for our prompting.

Luna joined us as a unicorn, and the story of how she'd joined us was a tale all its own, but the form suited her beautifully. Lovely and ethereal, magical and free, mysterious and unfettered by all but her own whims, it suited her right down to her bones.

She was also able to give Harry a metaphysical kick in the pants, touching him with her horn while she was a unicorn pushed him over the edge to achieve his own pheonix transformation.

It was a feverish bit of work for the rest of us, and took more time than I felt we could easily spare save for how vital it was to our futures, should we be facing ones that featured Azkaban.

Despite several turns of the Time Turner, three weeks advanced during our studies and both school and our marriage dates grew much closer. During this time we also moved around extensively, hiding from Albus.

Finally having achieved those forms (correctly defined as non-inheritable gifts, although the potential for the gift itself could be passed down, the form itself would not be) we used purified blood magic rituals to share them around, so that each of us could access the forms created by the others, even those designed by Sirius and Minnie. So the whole flock of us could hide out as cats or dogs, foxes, otters, lions or the slew of forms now available to us. It gave us a ton of useful disguises, modes of transport, even combat potential.

With our metamorph abilities working on so many base creature templates we would be practically unrecognizable in any urban or rural environment. A cat or dog able to change its fur and markings the way Dora could change her face and hair, made for an animal that could pass itself off as virtually any breed, and thus fit in practically anywhere.

Foxes and squirrels had a more wild bent, but the same thing still applied, and parrot and chameleon forms gave us the tropics. Lions, while tremendously useful for their combat powers, could also, with a bit of morphing, be seen as pumas, and the various breeds of those were found practically worldwide, so that form, too, could be used as a disguise in the wilder regions.

I didn't even know how to begin quantifying the advantages of those magical forms. And while there were fewer calls for hiding in an aquatic environment, being able to fit in there too was not without benefit - fewer people around to try and pierce the disguise, for one.

And, if one was going to be escaping from a small island in the north sea, you did well to have a swimming form so immune to extreme cold.

Actually, there was hardly a cage built that could contain that wide an array of possible forms. Most things that could contain a man would let you slip out between the bars as a squirrel, or fly off as a parrot. You could cut through whatever mesh could contain the squirrel with the claws of a lion, and hit the ocean as a seal. The only thing you'd have to worry about is becoming whale food, as sharks or killer whales saw seals and thought 'lunch!'

And that was presuming that we couldn't just transform into pheonixes and 'flame teleport' to someplace safer.

Now we had a solid means of escaping Azkaban, if we were ever incarcerated there. Next would be to prepare for a life on the run, and the most sensible thing for us to do in that circumstance would be to leave the UK. Albus had near supreme authority in Magical Britain, and it would be some time for that to decay around him, even with the information I'd already dropped. So it would behoove us to do our hiding elsewhere, because as I'd said his influence (while still existing) dropped sharply once you left the British Isles.

And there were ways to make a life abroad far more comfortable. This was especially easy if you had the right magic.

Judging by the fact that Barty Crouch Sr speaks over 200 languages, both Muggle and Magical, and was not any great brain, it seemed likely that there were magical ways for magical people to learn them.

And indeed there was. Language Lozenges, available in any magical travel store for a handful of galleons (no more than seven apiece) were a common item in this world that Rowling had not touched on, and you took one as if it were a cough drop, only it taught a language instead of soothed throats.

Their effects were permanent, lasting all life long, just as if you'd learned a tongue naturally. All were color coded and labeled, with those symbols based, as closely as possible, on ancient heraldry, with heavy European bias. The one for French was blue, with a Fleur-de-lis imprinted on it. English was red with a trio of lions rampant, and so on.

You couldn't take too many at once or you'd end up confused and mixing your languages, if not muddling them entirely. It basically took a week, minimum, to absorb one safely before you could try another, and it was best to use the language as you did so, to reinforce the learning cycle.

It made me wish I'd been using them all along, but oh well. I bought full sets of the major world languages for each of us and distributed them. We'd all take the same ones at the same times to help us reinforce each other, and follow a weekly schedule as best we could from then on.

The more of those we knew, the more places we could easily hide. So we all popped a Japanese lozenge apiece as we started our martial arts courses. It helped with our terminology and really impressed our instructors. I already knew the tongue, but it helped make those memories more accessible.

We already had rather extensive sets of magical camping gear, although it had come time to purchase more of those, so we all had our own sets in case of disaster, loss, or other emergency.

Next trick would be trying to keep hold of our equipment in spite of capture. And, having read how the Snatchers (magical bounty hunters) treated their prey, we had nothing to worry about from them. If they caught us it would be no worry, as they barely even searched their prey, only doing just enough to find and pull away wands. So, carry a spare or convincing fake in any easy to discover and remove place, and you had no worries from them, as if they captured us we'd be able to escape as soon as their backs were turned.

No, what I was worried about were Probity Probes: long, thin golden rods used to detect spells of concealment and hidden magical objects, described as both crude and effective. But... every spell had a counter, well, all of them except the Unforgivables, of course. So, since magic devices were nearly all based on spells, it should be possible to develop a counter for the probes.

Knowing how a thing could be searched for was a huge part of hiding from those searches. So if you understood how a detection device worked, you could evade it. Just like a metal detector couldn't find a non-metallic weapon, and so on.

So I went and bought one of those probes, having thoughts about devising a counter for it. None of my memories showed me how to create one, but I did have some idea on how to reverse engineer magical objects at that point, due to my collection of curse breaker memories of people who had to study such things in order to understand unknown or forgotten devices incorporated into tomb defenses, so they could get around them.

However, it was at this stage that I got interrupted by what I'd been fearing all along. Albus cornered me as I came out of the shop all alone where I'd purchased a Probity Probe, and the look on his face was... stormy.

"Ah, Gilderoy. I'm afraid one of your editors contacted me for comment on a book of yours he was about to publish, fearing to slander me. I was grateful that he did, as you had included the most appalling charges of misconduct against me in no less than three volumes. Fortunately, I was able to Obliviate the man and his staff and destroy the already printed tomes. They will not be coming out in bookstores now, or indeed ever. So the information you have sought to broadcast shall remain hidden. It was really quite rude of you to try and publish it in the first place."

Ooops. Well, if I survived this to get clear and try again a pensieve memory of this moment was going into the submission package of the next copy of those manuscripts I'd sent out. And I'd be using a different publisher!

However, Albus was so angry my escape was far from guaranteed, and he was not done ranting just yet. "Of course you and I are going to have a little chat over the topic of how you came to possess such information, which I was sure had been safely hidden away. In fact, you have proven to know a great many things beyond what was available to the public, or indeed anyone beyond a select and trusted few. I should like to plunge the entire depths of your experience to find out why. But first, I would like my wand back."

I glanced down to the stick of elder he grasped. "I was under the impression you already had it. Isn't it there in your hand?"

Dumbledore raised the elder wand and assumed a dueling stance. "Yes, it may be with me physically, but these past few weeks it has not been responding to me as it once did. Curious as to why, I did a little searching through my mind and found a deleted section of memories, one in which you defeated me. Now, I'm afraid that I shall have to return the favor."

Ah. So it wasn't to be Azkaban with me. At least not yet. He had to defeat me first to remaster his wand. THEN he'd doubtless drug me to overcome the Occlumency I'd just been learning, rummage through my mind and, if I was lucky, I'd wind up in a cell in Azkaban.

But a couch in St. Mungo's ward for permanent spell damage, Obliviated down to a vegetable state, was more likely to judge by his look. The expression of anger was just as stormy as ever, and could only get worse if he followed through on that threat and discovered just how much I truly knew. Bellatrix was doing a wonderful job teaching us all Occlumency, but hadn't had time to finish yet. Too many other projects. We were all still learning, and somehow I had the impression that Albus would not be letting me go until he'd either paralyzed or stunned me to grant himself the opportunity to do a thorough ransacking of my mind to find out what he wanted to know, in detail.

Ouch. Okay, bad situation here!

I gave a grave nod, replying solemnly. "And the Elder Wand responds best only to its true master, who is whomever defeated its last one. So you want to return the favor, restoring your connection to it. A connection you gained in the first place by defeating your best friend and lover Gellert Grindelwald. Very well, Albus. We'll do this your way." I cast my cloak to the floor as part of limbering up to free my shoulders and arms for more swift reactions.

Then we walked several paces before turning and assumed dueling positions across from each other.

I made a mistake and met his eyes. Instantly I could feel the stabbing pains of a powerful legilimency attack. I'd not been very long in training to resist this, so he effortlessly blew through those minor shields I had prepared.

What he found, however, stopped him cold.

I had so many memories of complete lives in there, so many times my own age in duration, even I had trouble navigating them at times. So many sets of different personalities, experiences and so on all slowly merging into one, not to mention boughts of insanity (and thinking of impossible things like rolling credits, as if that were possible), all slowly being altered to fit me.

In spite of a fully successful legilimency penetration attack, Albus couldn't even find my core self now.

It was in there, but there was SO MUCH STUFF I found I could hide it behind a wall of fake memories, and just to yank his chain and make him wonder I used a specific set and made him think I thought I was a Catholic witch from Spain, with all of the memories of a life history to prove it.

Albus had been intending to paralyze me from a carefully constructed mind insertion, giving orders to my subconscious and bypassing the conscious self entirely, but wound up having to withdraw his attack without fulfilling any of his previous intentions.

He couldn't implant suggestions, even a paralysis command, without finding out the core me. Telling one of my sets of witch memories to stop moving didn't help him any.

"I see," he mumbled, shaking his head to try and clear it. "And what, pray tell, happened to the real Gilderoy Lockhart?"

"He stands before you," I replied with a cocky smirk, trying to recover my center after his attack while inwardly suppressing the answer, 'I wish I knew, old man.'

Dumbledore's face went slightly slack... in sadness? I couldn't read it properly, and it lasted only a moment in any case. But then it filled with resolve and he cast the first spell, animating a statue of rock.

I immediately began to reply, but it was clear from the outset that I was grossly overmatched.

It should have been obvious. And to me, it always had been. While I had many skills it could be compared to dumping together a pile of car parts, some good, many bad, and most of them just nothing in particular. But I hadn't had time or the experience necessary to assemble it into something usable, much less fine tune it. It was all hanging around unconnected. While, on the other hand, Albus intimately knew all of his abilities and had linked them together into a smoothly functioning machine, fine tuned across decades of use and including delicate adjustments as required.

I privately resolved to start some intensive dueling practice as soon as I was able, provided I survived this one, of course.

Albus started overwhelming me from the first instant, which is not to say that I did not have tricks of my own. But he had more, and better ones. Both of us were transfiguring odds and ends and statuary to serve as guardians or assailants (and his, of course, were superior to mine in practically every way, both more numerous and stronger), but he also conjured animals to attack me from the sides to draw attention from his direct attacks with their own deadly dangerous distractions.

Thanking Heaven that I was ambidextrous, I resorted to a carefully planned surprise of mine and proved I carried shrinking swords instead of shrinking keys, a former muggle-baiting spell applied instead to carrying concealed armaments. In a single motion I garbed myself in armor and weapons of goblin silver I'd previously extracted from Bella's vaults to use to defend myself in cases just like this one, protecting my person via my strong sword skills with one hand, while still casting spells with my wand in the other.

Dumbledore gave this a blink of interest, but did not let up on the attack at all, continuously driving me back with his superior spell work creating far more attacking animals and objects than I could easily cope with.

Thus armored, I was immune to fang and claw, though they could still knock me down or pin me. So I also covered myself with an aura of flame to drive those animals back from assaulting me. I then used a few exploding potions, based on failed experiments or catastrophes from the novels, to cover the Headmaster and then all of the animals in failed boil remover potion, coating them all in ugly, painful boils from head to toe.

It slowed him down, but not much, although it did buy me breathing space as all of his conjured animals gave up seeking for my blood to whine and cringe and lick their boils, or just writhe or crawl off to escape the pain. This gave me and my animated constructs time to finish off his, leaving me with a small advantage which I made sure to exploit by throwing more potions.

Actually, a quick set of exploding potions bought me more success than all of the spells I'd tried. Dumbledore was accustomed to stopping attacks aimed at his person, but a grenade-like object going off nearby was not among his sets of recognized threats - although it must be said that he learned quickly.

Perhaps too quickly, as my brief surge against him, although it did some notable damage, was reversed all the same and once again he was driving me back with superior spell work of every kind. His shields or counterspells stopped every kind of attack I was willing to launch (not believing I could or should resort to the Unforgivables, as it could only spell bad news for me to use them on a wizarding judge, who'd then use that as evidence to enable him to legally do whatever he wanted to me in the event I should lose).

At the same time I was hard-pressed to simply keep up, dodging spells I could not shield from, and hardwired reflexes of many different sorts all firing at cross purposes to each other.

It was clear Dumbledore was the superior duelist from the start, as aside from that brief moment of success with my exploding potions he'd not had anything to fear from me. Still, I HAD managed to pique the guy's interest so Albus began to play with me, just to see what I could do.

Thus he raised fears that he wasn't going to keep me around to study later.

That was when Dumbledore made a mistake. Focusing on me, and following my retreat so he could keep me in proper wand range at optimum dueling distance, he didn't notice until he'd done it that he'd stepped on my cloak, discarded at the very beginning of the fight before we'd parted to duel.

The instant his foot met fabric the entire cloak sprang up and wrapped him tight, cocooning his body and sinking fangs into his neck to deliver poisons to both paralyze and stun him.

This was no accident. I'd deliberately dropped it before we'd each retreated to proper dueling range, so it had been in the middle between us, and I'd animated it long ago to serve as exactly this sort of trap against him. It'd been stealthily creeping into his way this whole time, making sure that so long as he was coming towards me it would be in his path, yet quite carefully appearing harmless the entire time.

Hey! I'd known all along that I couldn't best Albus Dumbledore in a fair fight! So I'd prepared contingencies, as in the event this duel happened no way was I going to restrict myself to fighting fair!

I had come to realize that it's not so much the resources you have, it's how you use them. I'd known all along that Albus could beat me spell for spell. He had been doing this, and viewed as formidable at it, for a very long time, while I was a recently recovered coward and incompetent.

So I'd laid a trap or two for him, hoping that while he was beating me his awareness of other things would be diminished. It had been a gamble, but it had paid off. Knowing I probably had only moments before Albus got out despite the venoms, I hit him at once, without delay, with my one unique spell.

It was the only spell I had that could get through his still erect shields, unique spells being hard to block, and I'd been saving it to use for just this moment so he still had no experience to base a counter off of.

My first week of spell practice in this reality, in the Room of Requirement, I had invented one unique curse of my own, using Lockhart's botched medical spell as a basis to create a Boneless Curse - vanishing the bones of a target.

There was already a bone-breaker curse, but broken bones can be cured in seconds. Regrowing vanished ones, however, took about twelve hours of painful treatment, and that was if you had the proper potion on hand to do it. So it was far more debilitating to de-bone your target than to stun or even bludgeon him, while still not being fatal.

So Dumbledore lost the use of both of his arms and legs, as the first target I hit was his collarbone (without which the arms are useless) then his pelvis, and finally finishing up with the one I should have started with, vanishing his jawbone so he couldn't speak, and finally summoning his wand.

No arms, no legs, no voice, and your options are limited.

It was probably Dumbledore's shock at the unexpected nature of the cloak's attack more than anything that carried the day. But the guy had already proved that he was not immune to surprise taking him out of a fight, as that was the way Draco had done it in the novels.

So, surprise had been what I'd counted on all along to carry me through this fight, should it ever happen.

Still, holding out long enough for the surprise to work had pushed me farther than I'd thought I could go. Albus was an astonishingly powerful duelist, and he'd pushed me near my breaking point with just a portion of his power. It had taken everything I had just to keep him interested enough to play with me. I was panting in relief when I saw his eyes gloss over as the poisons took hold.

I'd been lucky. Nor was a simple memory charm going to fix this, either. Well, not fix it all of the way. But that, as a component of other things... well, it was a good place to start.

Seeing the man who had caused so much pain and anguish trapped, I quietly whispered, "To the victor go the spoils, old man," and took the Elder Wand out of his grasp and into my own.

That would limit the amount of threat he could pose me, if only by a little. It would not make him no threat, it wouldn't even make him a manageable one. But any wee little loss of power to your enemy was always useful. Denied the advantage of the 'unbeatable' wand, even operating at sub-par capacity as the whole "you're not my master!" thing came into play, he was less powerful - and every little bit helped!

Now, I wasn't going to kid myself or make mealy-mouthed excuses. Albus may have been deserving of death, he'd certainly arranged it often enough for others, but I couldn't kill him. I didn't dare to.

The Dursleys were one thing, the Head of the Wizengamot was something else altogether!

I didn't even need the picture, springing fully formed into my mind, of myself standing in chains before the entire Wizengamot, being sentenced to death, to know that there was no way I was getting away with that. When someone of that much reputation and authority dies, people are going to want to know about it. Police would investigate. And, as the author of books that didn't like him, I would be among the first suspects.

The wizarding world didn't care about the presence or absence of evidence. Suspicion was enough, and often enough that was based on snap judgments and first impressions without any sort of investigation whatsoever!

No, I NEEDED the ability to testify, under Veritaserum, that I hadn't killed him or arranged his death in any way shape or form.

And, by a similar token, I just wasn't powerful enough to hold him prisoner. I didn't know his limits, but they were certainly greater than mine! I'd bested him in a duel using near every dirty trick at my disposal. I could and certainly would erase his memory of that fight, but he'd proven able to break memory charms before, and once he'd recovered his memory those surprises weren't going to work again. And coming up with more, when Dumbledore would be expecting trickery, wasn't going to be as useful the next time.

Simply put, he could overpower me. If Fawkes was still loyal to him he could escape from any bindings, or any cell (and I couldn't imagine why that bird was loyal to him in the first place, except perhaps for some kind of binding charm, but then I had to bite the bullet and admit that the bird had stuck by him before, and likely would again, and without knowledge of why it would be pretty pointless to try and stop it from happening). I could tell in my gut that Dumbledore could throw off an Imperious, so unless I wanted to keep him stoned out of his gourd, I couldn't expect to hold him prisoner, and even then I wouldn't put money on him not being able to spellcast while stoned.

Stoned? That gave me a Very Good Idea!

I only needed Albus out of the way for a little while. I could tell what kind of disaster I would be inviting by trying to destroy him at the peak of his power, but I still had those books tying him so closely to other dark lords, and that could expose enough of Dumbledore's own crimes to get him thrown out of most if not all of the offices he'd held.

That would pull most of the worst of his teeth. Sure, Albus was a very great wizard, powerful in his own right, but at the moment he wielded virtually all of the authority of the magical world. No matter how threatening he was as an individual, that couldn't compare to him BEING 'The Law!'

Yet, once those books came out, and people had a certain interval to read and consider them, that authority ought to fade away from beneath him. It had already proven possible for things to be that way, by the other public relations blows he'd had to cope with, dodge or disarm before.

Public opinion COULD hurt him! Dumbledore HAD been removed from the office of Headmaster before! And that was just on Lucius Malfoy's efforts. I had a hundred times the dirt on Albus that Lucky Lucy had conjured up!

So, all I really required was some space of time for Albus to be out of circulation long enough for those books to come to print and be distributed. Some period where he was unable to stop me from publishing them, because so long as he was 'in play' as it were, he'd use all of his considerable powers to stop me - because I was really striking at the root of his most far-reaching power: his influence.

And he was, by his own admission, addicted to power.

Which, that one statement explained so much of why he'd worked so hard, so deliberately to destroy Harry Potter.

For example, it was revealed by Albus himself that he was well aware of the "neglect and often cruelty" (direct quote, excerpt from Dumbledore in HBP, 3) that the Dursleys had treated Harry with over the past 15 years. He had later revealed that he needed to keep Harry "level-headed" and life with the Dursleys accomplished that for him. In other words, he needed the Dursley's neglect and abuse to shape Harry into a submissive little tool who would do anything to please an old man who showed him an ounce of kindness.

Dumbledore of canon had proved to be a monster in his treatment of Harry.

But, so long as he was viewed to be "The epitome of all that is good in the wizarding world" (direct quote, excerpt from one of Rowling's interviews, as the way she saw him - and thus proof of just how badly she'd lost control of her own characters during later part of the series) then he was untouchable. You couldn't defy him, much less defend yourself against him, so long as that was the common perception of him.

But.. alter that? So people at last saw him for the slime he really was? Well, that made things different. If a minor disobedience to him didn't spell the entire auror force immediately coming down on you to bind you to his will, that made the situation, if not comfortable, then reasonable. It put threats he posed onto a more manageable level.

For one thing, being accountable for his actions meant he could no longer just attack me on the streets, like he'd just done.

Judges could do what they liked, and most people assumed it was legal, but ordinary wizards were expected to have some legitimate cause before they could fight other wizards, and more than half the time he could never explain any cause he had openly without blowing wide the very secret he was trying to conceal by fighting me in the first place!

Back to my Very Good Idea.

I only needed to delay his interference for a while, to let public opinion wash most of his power away from him. I couldn't hold him prisoner, and I dared not kill him, not even after his influence had faded.

However, I had Blinky, and my pet could turn him to stone for me. Not lethal, so I could truthfully say that I had done nothing to kill him, or arrange to have him die. Not something that pheonix tears could cure him from, so Fawkes could not just rescue him. And it wasn't something he'd be able to break out of by himself.

It was a good plan, but I had something to do first.

Having only just now purchased a Probity Probe, I ran it over our 'beloved' Headmaster, and removed all of the items or spells it could detect (which was no small number - he carried an amazing assortment of devices, the vast majority of which I couldn't identify even with my wide assortment of magical backgrounds and experiences, curse breakers among them).

Next I blood typed him, then hooked him up to drain a pint into one of those nice muggle blood bags, figuring to steal his blood gifts, whatever they were (and I suspected a huge magical core was among them).

Hmm, maybe there was something about that 'blood magic makes you dark' stuff, seeing as how I had become a trifle ghoulish about my willingness to inject other people's fluids into my veins.

Then again, it might just be Addams-ish. Or Crazy. Hard to identify all of the influences on you when you've had so many, much more so when you've had them all jumbled together in so short a time.

Anyway, I had no particular desire to become a goat, and that's what the old man's animagus form was reputed to be, but we all might want to cross a mountain sometime when it wouldn't be convenient to fly. Or possibly spy on a farm sometime, although we had so many potential shapes now it was always possible to use alternates.

I say potential shapes because while the gift was transferable via the method we'd begun using - figure out your animagus form, then master it, then transfer the ability to use that via blood transfer. Anyway, while that most certainly worked it only transferred the latent ability. You had to master a form all over again to be able to transform, and that had kind of taken all of the fun out of it.

Luna was still our only unicorn animagus. We all had the latent ability, but she was the only one of us able to make transformations to that shape. Similarly Harry was the only one to master the pheonix shape so far. Those two just took way more oomph than any of the rest of us had to give.

I will append the word Yet to that, seeing as how I'd still not given up hope for the future, seeing as how it had already brought any number of impossible things, or what had previously been thought to be so.

Lower energy forms, like cat or dog, had most of us able to use them. Lions were few among us, so far, although Minnie had already become one.

Still, all of this was getting me off track. I had very little time to do what I was planning, and considered it vital to question him under veritaserum. Actually, much worse than that, I knew from my varied experiences that the effects of an overdose of veritaserum is that it becomes permanent, and I couldn't think of anything I'd more rather do to the old coot!

It would be very nice, one might even say essential, to find out what his intentions were regarding me, and also the details of his past plans, those regarding other characters of whom I was fond, general ideas for the world, and so forth. From this, I could probably compose another book in the Dark Lord series. But whatever good that information might do to me, however, it was trivial compared to what a permanent dose would do to him.

What would the Master Manipulator do if he couldn't lie?

How would he go forward living life if he truthfully answered any question any person made to him, and could not make an untrue statement?

I think honestly it might do him less harm in the long term if I were to cut the man in half with a chainsaw. This man was secrecy incarnate, playing cards close to his chest, always gathering information yet never releasing it to others. He'd never once answered a direct question honestly that I knew of! Albus Dumbledore lived for lies. Revealing information was not a part of his nature. And yet he faced a future of NEVER being able to lie or refuse to answer a question honestly again?

I think the man might prefer to be whacked in half with a chainsaw.

It was with no small amount of eagerness that I poured four full vials of full potency veritaserum down his unresponsive throat, thankfully aided by a swift medical charm designed for dosing unconscious patients with potions so he didn't choke, but gulped it all obediently down.

It was all I could do at that point to stop cackling.

Then I had another nifty idea and swiftly yet carefully began to draw runes on him where he won't see them: on his back, between toes, on the roof of his mouth, underneath his hair/beard, and so on. Selecting inks as close as possible to the flesh tones of the areas so marked before I tattooed them on (a legacy of a memory of a misspent youth) was also a touch of genius.

One of those runes would negate the effects of pheonix tears, should the Headmaster try to use them to negate his unfortunate, veritaserum induced truthful state. The others? Well, a great many other cures no longer worked for the Headmaster. As for the rest? They'd be their own surprises.

Something like that trick I'd played with my cloak, actually. Handy to have a few dirty tricks in reserve for in case it truly mattered.

Then I Obliviated the old man, just like Lockhart had done to countless others before him, causing all of his memories to come falling out of his brain in a cascading flood that got caught in a convenient basin.

I'd pick his secrets out of his own memories.

After that it was a simple matter to take him to Hogwarts and petrify him, then leave him hidden somewhere in his own office. Between his pinky toe on his left side and the toe nearest to it, completely invisible with his feet stuck in socks and shoes that would also be petrified, was a rune to vanish any mandrake restorative draught that came into contact with the man, before it could take any effect on him.

Let's see the morons of the wizarding world solve THAT one!

No, I hadn't killed the Headmaster, but I could potentially take him out of action for a very long time. And when they did get him back, they'd have had time to read those horrible exposes on his naughty deeds, and then he'd wake up all nice and truthful about any questions they asked of him.

No, that could destroy him more thoroughly than killing him ever could have.

Placing the man there, on my way out I realized I had no more emergencies in my life. There were problems, sure, but nothing out of the scope I was prepared to deal with, and I had plenty of pleasant things to look forward to, as well. There was Star Trek and other movies to film, plenty of satisfying work to keep busy on, good friends and companions to hang out with doing it, and a life to look forward to that, while it had a minor wrinkle or two, was not on the whole so bad. About the worst thing on the horizon was too many fiancees, and for that I could pull a Ranma and just figure out a way to hold the whole thing off indefinitely.

So, on the whole, I had a life, even one I found I was eager to go on living.

OoOoO

The End

OoOoO  
Author's Notes:

The first draft of this, which stayed up for years, was posted as just another chapter. However, the story naturally comes as an end here, and the more I worked on writing what came next the more I realized that it didn't fall within the same story arc, that if it came out, that would be a sequel, not a continuation. So here you are. 


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